Is the “Golden At-Bat” Really the Stupidest Idea for a Rule in the History of Sports?
Hey, here are some stupider ideas for Commissioner Manfred to ponder.
Major League Baseball is allegedly considering1 a new rule that Robert Spencer (taking time off from slicing and dicing Islamofascism) denounces as “the stupidest ever in the history of any sport played anywhere”. It’s called the “Golden At-Bat”, which is like calling what dogs do in the back yard “golden droppings”.
Not even such baseball iconoclasts as the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay and National Review’s Rich Lowry like the Golden At-Bat, but it isn’t inconceivable for the Manfred Regime. The commissioner dwells in a fantasy world in which MLB will overtake the NFL if only it finds that “one weird trick”. Some of the Manfred brainstorms have been a success (the pitch clock), some so-so (adding more teams to the playoffs) and some dreadful (fake runners in extra inning games).
But I’m not here to join the scolds excoriating what may be the commissioner’s latest folly. I want to be helpful. The Golden At-Bat is a bad idea, but it is not the worst possible idea. Here are a few that Mr. Manfred hasn’t dreamed up yet, or at least hasn’t disclosed in public.
Special Squads. Football teams get to adjust their “lineups” depending on the situation: squads for offense, for defense, for kickoffs, for punts and punt returns, for field goals, for unanticipated solar eclipses, and on and on. Once upon a time, the gridiron game, like baseball, limited substitutions, meaning that the same guys had to play offense and defense. Football dropped those limits, and attendance soared. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. It isn’t yet time for baseball to introduce unlimited substitution, but it can get much the same benefit by allowing squads. I suggest two four-man “hitting squads” (one to bat against southpaws, the other against righties) and a nine-man “fielding squad”. Some players (top-flight hitters who can also field) would appear on two or even three squads, some (defensive wizards who can’t hit, hitters with terrible batting splits) on only one.
Special squads are simply an extension of the designated hitter concept. Like the DH rule, they have the side benefit of opening up career opportunities to currently disfavored classes of player. I expect to see them in the MLBPA’s next contract demands.
The Mercy Reset. Sometimes a game gets off to a lopsided start. Fans begin drifting out around the fourth inning. They feel cheated, and, worse yet, the concession stands lose business. The Mercy Reset is the solution: If a team falls behind by eight or more runs before the end of the fifth inning, its opponent is declared the winner, and a new seven inning game begins. Both games count in the standings. Instead of having been subjected to a bore, the crowd gets to see more baseball than it paid for, and the beer, hot dog and taco vendors smile.
Base on Foul Balls. What is duller than a plate appearance that seems endless, as the count reaches three and two, and the batter then fouls off pitch after pitch after pitch? Dull, dull, dull. Here is the remedy: After the ninth pitch in an at-bat, the batter is awarded a “base on foul balls”. If he can get wood on the sphere that many times, he deserves to be rewarded. This rule has the ancillary virtues of putting more runners on base (adding to excitement and scoring) and closing a loophole in the pitch clock. Every pitch after the fifth adds half a minute or thereabouts to the length of the game, but the clock is helpless to do anything about it.
The Home Run Tie Breaker. Fake runners were added to baseball so that games that were tied after nine innings would reach a quicker resolution.2 Nonetheless, the number of innings is potentially unlimited. What can be done about that? Baseball can borrow an idea from metric football:3 If the game is tied after nine innings, the teams alternate at-bats until a batter on one or the other hits a home run.
The Two (or Maybe Three) Run Homer. Baseball currently treats all home runs as equal, whether they soar 480 feet (the longest of the 2024 season) or limp 282 (the shortest). Even less fairly, the rare and thrilling inside-the-park homer also counts for only a single run. This is blatantly unfair. Basketball grants an extra point for swishing an unusually long shot, football for following up a touchdown with a run or pass conversion instead of a kick. Long home runs should likewise be worth more than mere bloops over a short fence. I suggest two runs for homers longer than 450 feet or inside the park. Perhaps 500 feet or longer (not accomplished in the Major Leagues since 2022) should score three runs.
N.B.: If the commissioner floats any of the foregoing ideas in his next interview, please believe that he doesn’t subscribe to the Hesperian. What he says will be jetsam of his own fevered brain, not my fault.
I write “allegedly”, because the only evidence is some blather by Commissioner of Baseball Rob Manfred on a sports talk radio show and the rule’s use by the Savannah Bananas, a semi-comedic barnstorming team whose gimmick is bizarre baseball variations.
A hint that even Rob Manfred knows this to be a bad idea is that the fakes are not used in playoff games.
Metric football is often called “soccer” owing to its high level of phony violence.