The Josh Innes Show - Sports Innovations (More About The Golden AB)

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Well, this was supposed to be a segment about the College Football Playoff. But, I somehow allowed myself to go back down the Golden At Bat road. Look, I love the idea of trying it. Why not? What are you afraid of? I respond to some messages I received about this topic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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alrighty I know I've been quite college football heavy today and there have been people who've messaged me and said why don't you talk more about college football so I said okay I'll talk some about it it's what's there I could break down the golden at bat rule again, which really has people pissed off.

I love watching old heads get angry about possibly changing certain things about an old head sport like baseball. I'll get into the college thing in a second. But watching people lose their minds over the idea of getting another chance to see an elite player come up in a big spot in a baseball game is baffling to me. You could say baseball's dying isn't dying, whatever. I know as someone who grew up a diehard baseball fan, I'm not as interested in it as I used to be. Part of that could be that my team sucks now. Sure, I get that. And if I were working in Houston and the Astros and I'm talking about them every day, I'd be more engaged. Totally get that.

But I find baseball to be a long, boring, tedious season. The games don't matter. And then you get your ass to the playoffs. This was the worst of it this year as someone who watches, supports the Astros. You go through the whole damn season, 162-game season, only to get to the playoffs and be bounced in 20 hours. That sucks. Figure it out.

Like, we can judge the NBA and rip the NBA all we want. People used to bang on the NBA for the playoffs being like two months. Well, the playoffs are the games that matter. Shit, make the playoffs four months and make the regular season 10 minutes. Hell, don't even play a regular season. Just flip a coin and start the playoffs four months and make the regular season 10 minutes. Hell, don't even play a regular season. Just flip a coin and start the playoffs. At least the playoffs are interesting. But I love every time I bring up the baseball part of it and baseball being boring. It's like clockwork.

If you go to social media and you post, you know what's boring? Baseball. You'll get a rash of people and they have a look about them most of the time they have like american flags and maga stuff in their profile a lot of times they don't even have an actual picture it's like an eagle or something or a team logo or trump wearing sunglasses or something and they'll say oh yeah but, but basketball's so interesting. And I'm like, well, I didn't even bring up basketball, weirdo. I just said that baseball is boring.

To say that baseball is boring is not to compare it to other sports. It's just to say on its own, it is boring. And I find the game to be boring, and that's due in large part to the fact that they have basically eliminated most strategy from it or thought from it. It's just hit a home run, take a walk, or get an out. That's what baseball is now. It's uninteresting. We care way too much about dudes that throw 100 miles an hour that really can't pitch. We don't hit doubles, triples.

We don't steal bases. We don't bunt. We don't suicide squeeze. It's a boring game. There's no activity. That's why they had to try to eliminate the shift. That's why a lot of these other things are happening, because they're trying to add activity. Oh, no, God forbid a sport has activity and movement in it, and not a bunch of dudes standing

around with their thumbs in their ass for two and a half, three hours while you sit in the stands playing pocket pool because nothing's happening. Another one people like to go at me with is soccer. I don't even bring up soccer, but people go, oh yeah, but what about soccer? Like I had some guy message me yesterday. I was talking about, uh, I was talking about how I liked the gold net bat rule. I think it's kind of a cool idea to at least try, figure it out. Regular season baseball games are largely pointless. Experiment with some shit. Guy goes, oh, great. I don't watch soccer, but I don't tell them to change the rules.

I'm like, well, I do watch baseball, and I would like them to change some shit to make it a little bit more interesting. To which this gentleman says, oh, what are you trying to make this the Savannah Bananas? I'm like, well, friend, you know the Savannah Bananas, when they come to a town, they'll usually play three nights in a town, and they will sell out stadiums that the MLB team have no chance of selling out. Like Pittsburgh's not going to sell out a baseball game because the Pirates are the Pirates. The Marlins aren't going to sell out a baseball game

because the Marlins are the Marlins. Tampa's not going to sell out a baseball game. You know where they would? If the Savannah Bananas came to town for three nights. Baton Rouge, Louisiana filled up Alex Bach Stadium three nights in a row for the Savannah Bananas. There are football stadiums, Major League Stadiums. Look at how full the stadium was in Houston

for the Savannah Bananas. I'm not telling you to turn your sport into full-on Savannah Bananas and have people catching foul balls for outs and shit. That's fun. And it's a gimmick and it's cool. But like the idea of a golden at bat is fun. Oh, but Roger Clemens says, well, what happens if you, if it like, can you technically have one guy come up twice? Like, let's say you face Shohei Otani in the ninth inning. You have him bat right before he's supposed to bat in the order. Does that mean he gets to bat twice? Fuck yes, it does. And that'd be pretty

fucking cool, wouldn't it? Wouldn't you like the opportunity to see Josh Hader v. Shohei Otani in a playoff game twice? That'd be fun. I don't know why baseball is so averse to fun. Well, my version of fun is what baseball is now. No, it's not because baseball used to be fun. Baseball used to have some action. Some of our great athletes wanted to play baseball. Not just rich white kids wanted to play baseball. Real awesome athletes wanted to play. I was thinking about this the other day because somebody brought up Deion and how Deion played baseball and football on the same day.

And I saw somebody post a response to that, which was Brian Jordan. And Brian Jordan started his baseball career with the Cardinals. He played with the Atlanta Falcons, played with the Atlanta Braves. Every number he put up in baseball was better than Bo Jackson, who people love to talk about Bo Jackson, like football, baseball, and he ran up the wall and he broke a bat over his knee and all the shit. Every number in baseball,

and some of this is due to longevity, I get that, and numbers can be skewed, but Brian Jordan, football player and baseball player, was better statistically than Bo Jackson. Like we were getting great athletes that played baseball and the game was more fun because of that. The great athletes are not playing baseball anymore. And if you did, it'd be more fun. Now I'm not saying that adding the golden at bat would make it more, you know, get you better athletes. And you know, there's a lot of socioeconomic factors and a bunch of other things that play into that. You know,

a lot of kids just don't want to play baseball. Why? Because it's boring. Whereas if you're in the Dominican Republic or wherever, the Puerto Rico, wherever, that might be all you got, that and soccer. You know, you're not growing up playing football there. You're growing up playing baseball with rocks and sticks and you're kicking soccer balls. That's how you grow up. So the way you grow up and where you grow up matters. But like these people coming at me with like, like they're talking to me like I'm some sort of dipshit for thinking that maybe this works. Oh, why don't they get a commissioner that actually likes baseball instead of Rob Manfred? Like these people don't realize that if your sport doesn't grow and get better and improve, it will die.

These people don't seem to grasp that. There is one sport that is incapable of death or league, and that's the NFL. The NFL will not die. Football cannot die. Look at college football with the NIL and the portal and everything. It's getting stronger. NFL, stronger. What's going to happen is basically you've got a bunch of people slap fighting, a couple of leagues who are slap fighting. You got hockey, basketball, baseball. Hockey is well below all those. It's a very niche sport. It fills up arenas, but it's not

consuming people's thoughts on a daily basis. No one talks about hockey on television or radio, unless you're in a city where it's like the only thing like here in St. Louis, my God, if I have to hear people breaking down third lines for the fucking blues, like actually I'm glad I got fucking fired. Cause the idea of getting on the radio and having to try to act like I give a shit, who's the third line defenseman for the blues. I would, I would shoot myself in the face. I can't do that. That's not what I'm programmed to do. So in some towns they talk hockey because you're in a shit town that has nothing else, like St. Louis that has nothing else. But like in Philly where hockey has some passionate people, you don't talk about hockey on the

radio. Why? Because 20,000 people care about it and that's it. So hockey is well below everything else. But basketball and baseball can kind of slap fight with each other to see which people like more. And people bitch about those leagues all the time. Like I see people bitching about the NBA and just the style of play. Look, I watched the Grizzlies play the Mavericks last night.

And it's fast paced. I enjoyed it. I'd be more willing to sit down and watch a two hour, two and a half hour basketball game in the NBA over a two and a half hour baseball game. I don't care how fast the game is. I don't care that they're getting games done in two hours and 20 minutes. I don't care. Baseball just isn't fast and interesting enough for me. And the argument people will make for that is, Oh, so just because you have a tick tock attention span doesn't mean you have to ruin it for the rest of us. No, it's just fucking boring.

Nothing happens. Can you imagine if every football game were just punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt? That's boring. Nothing happens. Most baseball games are punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt. That's baseball to me. And that's from someone who

grew up playing baseball until I was in high school. I loved it. I wanted to be a baseball broadcaster. It's just fucking boring. So when people come at me with the, why do you, oh, of course you would like the golden at bat rule. Why not? Why the fuck not? Try something. What's the worst that could happen? You try it,ops you move on oh no we bastardize the game of baseball what are we gonna do in may when the pirates are 30 games out of first place already and we have to uh we're gonna try these little wacky stunts what happened to the game i love it got fucking boring that's what happened to the game you. And it could die if it doesn't get more interesting. And especially now with the fact that basically all your good players are going

to four fucking towns, most of your teams are going to suck anyway and have no chance to win the title. So when you come at me with this idea that ideas like the golden, the bad is just absurd and ruining the game, give it a fucking shot. Go for it. Oh, but Josh, it's just one of those stunts like the shootout that ruined hockey. The shootout didn't ruin hockey. You get a chance. You want to talk about innovations? Because I talked about this on Twitter, about innovations, right? Here, hold on. Let me play a couple of damn commercials so I can make sure I can make my $12 for this. Hold tight. All right, if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs, you got to check out Pick 6 from DraftKings.

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and things that people probably bitched about when they happened. And then the innovation happened and you go, oh, holy shit, that's not so bad. I guarantee there are a bunch of people that bitched about the three-point line when the three-point line came into play. People were always shooting from distance, but now you have a chance to get more points for it. What's wrong with that? Or, you know, people talk about hockey and it was Joe in Philly who was talking about how the shootout has ruined hockey. Look, the shootout is just a way to get people out of the fucking arena. Hockey has a tendency, especially in the playoffs, of going to this

point where it's really, really exciting, but then by the 14th overtime in the playoffs, you're like, I don't even give a fuck if my team loses at this point. This is just fucking boring and it's gone too fucking long in the goddamn game. But an innovation that hockey brought in that was great is the three-on-three overtime. It is extremely compelling and fast paced. And most of the time, I would imagine I don't have any doubt on this, but most of the time it ends the game before the shootout. Now I could be dead wrong on that. I don't know if the stats bear that out, but it's still exciting. Innovation is important. People scoff at this. They want things to stay the way they are. And I get that. We're all like that to a certain degree. I'm a radio guy. I wish radio still mattered. I wish that it was bigger than it is, but it's not.

So you evolve and you like, there are radio guys who are dinosaurs that don't understand the importance of being on YouTube or doing podcasts. Those people are dinosaurs that unless they're making big time money for their station are out and somebody a lot cheaper than you is going to come in and do all the shit that you need to do to try to advance your product in this day and age. If you don't innovate, you die, evolve or die. But here's what's happened to baseball. Baseball over time has gotten more boring.

It's gotten worse athletes. They might be big and bulky and ripped up and all this shit, but it's gotten worse. If you want to see exciting, go watch 1980s AstroTurf baseball cavernous ballparks. They ain't hitting a ton of home runs you know what they're doing shooting the gap in a ballpark that's 425 to dead center and running on concrete i've just described the whitey ball cardinals of the 1980s who i didn't live but i've watched every fucking video about them and i've watched that style of play and you want to tell me that's not fun you want to tell me dudes that who as individuals in most of those years

had more stolen bases than teams are getting nowadays? That's fun. That's why I'm a big supporter of getting rid of the shift or adjusting the shift the way they did. That was important. It was important because it gives you the opportunity to get more people on base. The pitch clock I don't really care about. It's fine. It is what it is, pitch clock. I'm not a believer in the time you spend at the ballpark

is the issue. My issue is that what's happening while you're at the ballpark is a bigger factor. I don't think people go to the ballpark and say, shit, I want to get out of here in two and a half hours. I think they'd be fine with it, but they don't want to be out in two and a half hours. They just want to see something exciting. And if that happens to be three hours or three hours and 15 minutes or three and a half hours, if it's fun, exciting, and fast paced, that's more important than, oh shit, let's get out of here in two and a half hours. Like soccer does a great job of it.

You can judge soccer all you want. And I bet on soccer. I enjoy soccer to a degree. Like I don't seek it out and just watch soccer. But if I bet on it, because I have systems that I use, gistoms, if you will, in soccer that I like to bet on sometimes, there were things I would do. I had the MLS package on Apple, and I would watch certain MLS things because I was trying to get every team to score a goal, that type of shit. I enjoy it. I think soccer, and you can judge me me and you can shit on me and you can say I'm an idiot. You can call me a blue haired liberal. Don't give a fuck. I find a good soccer

game to be far more exciting than most baseball games. Now it depends on where it is. If it's in the world cup, that's different than, you know, the Mets playing the brewers in may on a Tuesday afternoon. But there are soccer games that are fucking electric. And here's a hot take. There are 0-0 soccer games that are electric. Far more interesting even than a 5-2 baseball game. You say, Josh, fuck, that's stupid. 0-0 soccer.

You know how many times, like, there's something about the drama in soccer that every time you have a chance to go down, it could be a make or break moment in the game that doesn't exist in baseball, but one goal can make or break the whole damn thing in soccer. That's why everything is tense and awesome. Look, I'm not telling you that I sit around and watch soccer for hours at a time. I do not. I couldn't even tell you the last time I did watch soccer. I was really into betting on MLS for a while. I'm a degenerate, but my degenerate ways led me to actually watching. And when it's an intense moments in soccer and you

get a good rush up field and there's a chance for someone to cross one for a header and it just goes just wide or a guy makes an amazing save, that's fun. I understand that most of the sport is just pulling their puds at midfield. I get all that. But I find soccer to be more interesting at its highest level. Again, it has to be at its highest level versus just kind of boring baseball. Now you give me a great playoff

baseball game, that's one thing. The problem baseball has is that most games don't matter. So if most games don't matter, then let's fuck around. Oh, but what does that mean for all the records? Are they going to have, what if Aaron Judge gets 150 more at bats and breaks records and we have to act like they matter? Well, there will obviously be an asterisk, you pud.

But what does it matter? The records were broken by ROID users before. Records have been broken by dudes on amphetamines and cocaine. Who fucking cares stop living in the past get in the future like there's gonna come a time and it could be in 50 years could be a hundred years could be a thousand years from now when people are tooting around and jetsons like flying cars and they're gonna look back on this discussion where we're like hey uh did you know that like they'll be learning it at like universities and the teacher will be like the instructor or whatever the Nazi that's teaching the class will be like, hey, did you guys know that back in 2024 they questioned whether or not the golden at bat rule would work and everybody will snicker and laugh.

Be like, ha ha ha ha. All those old heads like i'm sure there was someone if there was social media in the 1940s been like hey we're going to integrate baseball they're like oh the fuck we are i like baseball the way it was obese white men smoking cigars and fucking broads. That's how I like my baseball. We don't want to innovate with anybody of color or anybody else. Ha ha! Social media, way to ruin baseball. So, and things went pretty well after they integrated baseball. But as we've discussed, people are just like, give things a shot.

Hell, this is the most anybody's even talked about baseball other than, oh, shit, another great player is going to the Dodgers or, oh, shit, another great player is going to the Phillies. And most of your little shitty small town baseball teams don't have a shot because here's Juan Soto going here. Here's Blake Snell going here. Here's all these guys going to the big markets and your teams don't have a chance. At least this is wacky. Why the hell not? Hell, I'd be in favor of extra innings being a home run derby.

Now, none of the stats would count, but why not? If it goes to extra innings, let's have just 10 swings. You pick one batter, he gets 10 swings. Their batter gets 10 swings. Let's fucking go. If nothing else, you're possibly giving out 10 more souvenirs to fans for free, and that's nice.

Why not try different shit? And you might say, Joshua, why don't you want them to innovate in football? Because football ain't fucking broken. The whole world watches football. The whole world doesn't watch baseball. The whole country doesn't watch baseball. Most people tune it out. It's background noise.

And the NFL does evolve to a degree to their detriment, tune it out. It's background noise. And the NFL does evolve to a degree to their detriment, but it ain't stopping people from watching. Look at this Aziz Alshar thing. Oh, we're all pissed off because football's soft, right? Or, ooh, it's awful. Football is too barbaric. Guess what? We're all still watching it. The record numbers keep going. Oh my God, you're putting a game exclusively on Peacock. No one will watch that. Fuck you. And then everybody watches it and it's up 50% year over year. Oh, don't put a game on Netflix. Nobody will watch it, but they will. Football, that's why I don't bitch about football stuff because football ain't broken, but also no one's tuning out of football. People are consuming football. Baseball has to figure out a way to stay relevant because they're

already screwed because all these major market teams are going to gobble up all the talent and are consuming football. Baseball has to figure out a way to stay relevant because they're already screwed because all these major market teams are going to gobble up all the talent and you're stuck with 27 teams that don't mean anything. Or you have the risk of being in the NBA, which is like the most talked about shit on social media, yet people don't watch it on TV and it's just kind of out of sight, out of mind for most of the year as well. Basically, basketball and baseball have to fight each other to see who can be number two. And currently, it's basketball. But who knows?

And I know I was supposed to spend this segment talking about colleges and the college football playoff. I don't know how I allowed myself to go off on the golden at bat rule again. But my God, I'm in favor of the golden at bat rule again but my god i'm in favor of the golden at bat rule it's so great i want i want more golden at bat rule i want all the golden at bats again i saw roger clemens responded and here i go again but he goes so you mean to tell me in the ninth inning with the bases loaded you strike out otani but you could face him again fuck yes let's again? Fuck yes. Let's go. That's fun. Oh, God forbid we give people high drama in a game.

Sorry that the bases are loaded and here comes your slap hitting number nine hitter. Although those don't even exist anymore. What slap hitters are out there? They don't exist. Who are you? Ichiro? But what's wrong with that? It is not wrong to say that it is the only sport where you are not guaranteed in a high leverage moment to see your best players. And imagine managers having to actually make decisions during the game and figure out what they're going to do. They do nothing. All right, anyway, I got to stop bitching about this.