TMonday was the first time I saw mention of a baseball “golden at-bat.” A few entries flashed up on X, my spam detector immediately dismissed them, and I went looking for my next distraction. A day later I was wasting my life on social media again and there he was again: the “golden-at-bat”. The internet had won: I did a little research.

Several entries described a possible rule change in Major League Baseball that would allow a team to send its preferred player to the plate at any time, once in a game, even if it was not his turn. I refused to ask the universe the countless questions that came to mind, such as: What happens when that “golden” player is already on base? This was obviously a gag. Such a rule change wouldn’t be a minor change to the way the sport is played: We’re not talking about advertising on uniforms or even ghost runners helping decide extra inning slogs. A golden strike? This immediately turns the game into a completely different code, at least for me. I still don’t buy it.

But then I started to see real Articles that pop up in newsfeeds, articles that aren’t from The Onion, a Russian bot farm, or my own personal state of delirium. These reflections were complemented by photos of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and real quotes from the man himself.

Even real, former baseball players questioned whether such an idea was legitimate or whether it was instead a random, underhanded satirical attack by baseball executives.

“This can’t be real,” Roger Clemens wrote on But could it happen? Anything is possible with Manfred, who changed the game on a level we haven’t seen since the designated hitter finally made his way to major baseball in 1973. For a grumpy National Leaguer like me, the DH was always sacrilege. But at least it didn’t come straight out of nowhere: this rule was spread back in 1891. As far as I know, the only gold thing baseball has ever had or has is the piece of metal that the commissioner presents to the winner of the World Series each season.

Manfred and Co. toss around nonsensical ideas like the “Golden at Bat,” which apparently caused quite a stir at an owners meeting, and one might wonder whether the commissioner is actually a fan of the game he oversees. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with slightly refreshing a dusty old sport like baseball, and to be fair, MLB has had something of a winning streak when it comes to rule changes.

The pitch clock, which ended most of the endless crotch grabbing, batting glove fumbling and pitcher lollygagging, sped up games by an average of 28 minutes and was a welcome improvement. As does accelerating the speed game by increasing the bases and limiting throws to first base. It also worked well to reward batsmen for perfect middle contact by adjusting the soul-crushing shifts.

But the golden strike is a much bigger change if it turns out to be real. Finally, is this announcement of a radical, sport-altering change a genuine attempt to gauge public perception, or a mere publicity stunt to give baseball some attention on cold December days while the NFL is eating everyone’s lunch and Juan Soto is keeping up the most? of the free agency market. If the proposal is a deception created for a bit of cold-weather publicity, consider the job done and move on.

I suspect Manfred won’t do that, but if I were him, I would focus on the real work that baseball needs to do. That includes finding permanent housing for two teams stuck outdoors in minor league ballparks in sweltering areas for the foreseeable future.

The cost of the former Oakland A’s new Las Vegas Dome has risen from $1.5 billion to $1.75 billion, meaning owner John Fisher will have to start checking his mattresses for changes . There are 250 million reasons to believe that a move is questionable and that the Athletics could be stuck in a AAA stadium in Sacramento for some time.

The Tampa Bay Rays’ stadium plans are also in jeopardy after the St. Petersburg City Council expressed buyer’s remorse for using public money for an MLB stadium after the region was rocked by back-to-back hurricanes, one of which the roof tore off home field. So the team’s long-term future in the region hangs in the balance while the Yankees’ spring training home in Tampa will host the Rays in 2025.

In the meantime, Manfred wants to overhaul MLB’s entire local and national television and media rights structure. To do this, the owners would have to agree to extensive revenue sharing plans and complex negotiations with the players’ union in the next collective agreement by 2028. The US national television contracts are expiring.

On the field, baseball needs to find real solutions to the crisis of endless arm injuries to its pitchers and find a way to suppress at least some of the 10,000-plus extra strikeouts per season that hurlers have racked up against helpless hitters since 2000.

Instead, we get the golden strike, the equivalent of being bored at 2 a.m. on the Fourth of July and stuffing M-80s into cinder blocks just to see what happens. This never ends well and such a move would certainly ruin baseball forever.