Baseball Purists Can Rejoice: the 'Golden At-Bat' Won't Be

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I don’t know if there’s a set of fans who are more resistant to change than baseball fans. Baseball traditions are almost mystical to hardcore fans, and any rule that disrupts the fabric of the sport doesn’t go over well with those fans.

One hypothetical rule has been floating around the Major League Baseball (MLB) rumor mill for several days now. My friend and colleague Robert Spencer explained what he called “the stupidest [rule] ever in the history of any sport played anywhere” on Wednesday:

It’s called the “Golden At-Bat.” You might think this means giving up unto others the hits that they give up unto you, but it is actually the idea of allowing each team the chance to bring up to bat anyone it wants at any point in the game.

This can only happen once per team in each game, but it could mean that a team’s big hitter, someone on the order of Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge, could come up to bat, hit a home run, and then, in a crucial situation, be called back to the plate immediately to be the next hitter. Or maybe, if you know that a particular hitter hits a given pitcher as if it were batting practice but he won’t be coming to bat this inning, you can bring him in for a Golden At-Bat to try to spark a rally.

It sounds like the kind of rule kids playing baseball in somebody’s backyard would make up…

Indeed it does, but it became a hot topic among baseball media and fans throughout the week. If the number of notifications I received from my favorite sports news site, The Athletic, was any indication, it was a dream topic for sports journalists. I counted no less than four articles over three days talking about the proposed rule on that site, including a list of legendary baseball moments that the “Golden At-Bat” could have changed and a list of hitters who could take advantage of the rule.

Fans, on the other hand, weren’t crazy about it. I posted something about it on my Facebook page — I referred to it as MLB “jumping the shark” — and wrote, “It’s like when they change a game show and add some new element or cheesy gimmick and it’s never the same.” Friends commented on the idea, calling it “awful,” “dumb,” and “terrible.” One even said, “If they make this change, I’ll be done with baseball.”

Rejoice, baseball purists! MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who has said that he doesn’t like the rule, said that the “Golden At-Bat” won’t become a reality in the majors anytime soon.

ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reports:

Speaking at an event at the Italian American Baseball Foundation on Thursday night in New York, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred clarified comments he made on a podcast last month regarding the potential rule change which has led to discussion about the viability of the idea.

“To go from the conversation stage to this actually showing up in MLB is a very long road,” Manfred told the Yes Network on Thursday. “You don’t like the idea? I wouldn’t be too concerned about it right now.”

Manfred didn’t promise that the “Golden At-Bat” would never make its way to MLB, but we can always hope that the league will delay this rule indefinitely and that the idea will die a natural death. After all, baseball should remain as free of gimmicks as possible.

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