MLB Getting Rid of Disabled List, Sort Of

As Jeff Passan of ESPN is reporting, Major League Baseball will be renaming the disabled list as the “injured list.” The change was brought about by “concern that the term ‘disabled’…falsely conflates disabilities with injuries and an inability to participate in sports.”

This all follows recent talk about changes to the game’s rules, among which is a proposal to move the DL (argh…IL) back to 15 days from the 10-day minimum established in 2017. That could still happen, or there could be a hybrid structure with 15 days for pitchers and 10 for position players, though this recent alteration is to the name only.

Perhaps the greatest impact of the name change will be to our habits, since “DL” is firmly established and it’ll take some time for “IL” to really establish itself as part of popular nomenclature.