Could the DH actually go away and will the AL and NL actually merge into one league?

Earlier this week, the commissioner's office announced that they were forming a rules committee, officially titled "The Special Committee for On-Field Matters". It's makeup is similar to what the NFL currently has in their Competition Committee, with the idea that during each off-season, this committee will evaluate possible rules changes to help protect the players, and to fix problems with the game in general.

Many people have speculated that this was to help expand instant replay use in baseball...and that likely will happen with this committee in place.

But the whispers going around over the last week have been that this committee may be been formed as a way to unify all the rules in baseball.

What does that mean? Well, Bud Selig, during his reign over the MLB, has slowly been working to merge the National and American Leagues. There are no longer any league presidents. There are no separate NL and AL umpires anymore. And the most drastic change, interleague play.

Basically we don't have two separate leagues anymore...except for one thing: The Designated Hitter.

It is my belief that Selig will want his ending legacy to be the merging the NL and AL into one league. He has continued to state that he plans to retire in 2012 (assuming the Mayans were wrong).

Now I don't know if the DH will ever go away. The players union wants to keep it desperately as it is a way to have aging hitters stay in the game without the strain of playing in the field. More starting players = higher salaries on a roster. And the MLBPA is ridiculously powerful.

Baseball, in general, has worked well with different rules for each of the leagues and it satisfies fans both pro and con on the DH matter to have 1/2 the teams playing with it and 1/2 not. I personally hate the DH, but for me, having equal rules throughout all of baseball is more important, especially if we are going to have inter-league play (which I hate too).

We'll see what happens here. This is uncharted territory for baseball. Will Selig try to add one last crowning achievement onto his reign as commish...One Major League?