The Josh Innes Show - The Golden At Bat Rule

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

I grew up loving sports. My passion has waned as I've gotten older. Therefore, outrageous changes to sports don't really bother me. Take for instance the latest idea for MLB....the Golden At Bat Rule. Social media is outraged by this. I love it. Let's break this down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Battle of Ontario is on, and FanDuel's your home for live betting the series. With features like live SGPs, build a parlay any game, any period. Or stack multiple matchups onto one slip with Same Game Parlay Plus. What's better than playoff hockey? Overtime playoff hockey. Get more from the game with live overtime markets. Download FanDuel today and get more with North America's number one sportsbook. Please play responsibly. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. The following was recorded from inside an ice plunge.

Ah! Woo! Okay. All right. When a core's life is cold enough, the mountains on the can turn blue. So the next time you want a cold lager, cold filter, cold package, Coors Light. Just wait until those glorious mountains on the can turn blue. It's easy to say that fast when you're freezing cold.

Spring is here and you can now get almost anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? You can't get a well-groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmesan delivered. Sunshine? No. Some wine? Yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats.

Order now. Alcohol and select markets. See app for details. You know, I love sports and I have since I was a kid. It's just been a passion of mine. Like most of you listening to this podcast probably have a passion for sports in some way, whether it's a passion for a particular team, a particular city, a particular league, whatever.

I think we all grew up like in our developmental stages. Most of us grew up and were developed in a time that the internet wasn't a big deal. There wasn't social media. You just watched sports. You didn't really know anything about the teams other than you liked them. You know who played on them. You knew who your favorite players were, but you didn't pay attention to the contracts. You didn't pay

attention to the money. You didn't know that your team went out and didn't do a good job signing free agents, right? Like as a kid, every year your team would play. You had no idea they were supposed to suck, but you just rolled with play. You had no idea they were supposed to suck, but you just rolled with it and you watched every game and wanted them to win every game. You didn't know the point spreads. When I was 10 years old, I didn't know the point spread of the Saints Falcons game. I just knew I was rooting for the Saints. Or before that, when I lived in other places, I used to root for the Chiefs when I was a younger kid. My family from Missouri, they didn't have football in St. Louis.

They were Chiefs fans. So I would want to watch Derek Thomas and Steve Bono and Elvis Gerbach and Marcus Allen and Andre Padmoon rising and all these guys. I had no idea what the point spreads were. I had no idea what the adjusted value of their contracts were. And I didn't care. I just watched it because I enjoyed it. And I think that's most of us.

Growing up, you didn't care. You just rooted for your team. I know this. This is something that sticks in my mind vividly. Vividly remember this. When I was a kid, I lived in a bunch of different places. We've talked about this before, but I think I lived in like nine different towns before I was 10 years old, some stupid number like that. Like I lived in a lot of places.

Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Des Moines, Iowa. Back to Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Memphis, Tennessee. Mobile, Alabama. Springfield, Missouri. Cookville, Tennessee. Billings, Montana, Baton Rouge,

Louisiana, Piggott, Arkansas, Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Again, like I've lived in a lot of places and a lot of those before I even discovered what masturbation was. And I was an early bloomer. But I tell you that because one of my most vivid early sports memories was living in Montana. I was a Chiefs fan at the time because we had moved from Missouri and everything, and I rooted for the Chiefs. And Joe Montana was the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs at the time. And they had had this epic Monday night game against the Broncos. Everybody remembers this one where he throws it, I think, to J.J. Burden or Willie Davis. One of them makes the catch in the corner of the end zone. The epic Joe Montana drive at mile high to beat John Elway in Denver. I was a big Chiefs guy at the time.

Growing up, that was my team, you know. So I'm at school one day. And, again, I don't know why this sticks with me so much. But Montana's kind of a Denver Broncos and Denver sports area and you know because there are no pro sports in Montana so I remember we'd get to watch the Utah Jazz would be on TV there a lot of people were Broncos fans there the Colorado Rockies like their team caravan would come through Montana you know like there was a Colorado Utah that part of the country state so a kid at school I don't know why we had a newspaper probably because we didn't have phones

and everything but this is 1994 kid pulls out a newspaper and he's like look it says that Joe Montana's retiring he's not going to play for the Chiefs anymore. And I'm fairly certain that I cried at school as an 8-year-old kid over the fact that Joe Montana wasn't going to play football for the Chiefs anymore. So most of us have grown out of that part of things. Now, some of us haven't. Those people are called Philadelphians. They have not grown out of that, and that's just how it is. Some people still cry over sports.

Some people still take it more seriously now than they did as a kid it's their life and death thing and like I'm not going to totally judge you for it but in my mind most people don't feel the same way about sports today as an adult as they did about it as kids because as kids there was no ulterior motive. There was no gambling. There was no idea that there's more to it. There's no more, I didn't like the coach. There's none of this. There's no, I hate this fan base because I fight with them on social media. None of that. It was just, I love sports. I would watch it nonstop. There was never a time I was watching something other than like ESPN when I was a kid that and you know horror movies because I had a giant horror movie collection when I was a kid I would actually buy the like the eight hour blank tapes and I would go to the

video stores and rent movies and I'd make bootleg copies of movies for myself so I could have them I come from a long line of VHS piraters and bootleggers, but we didn't sell them. We just kept them for our own personal use. But I would have an eight-hour tape with three movies on it. Like this tape has Nightmare on Elm Street 1, 2, 3, and 4. This tape has Nightmare on Elm Street 5, Freddy's Dead, and Wes Craven's New Nightmare. And that's just kind of the way I operated. So I liked horror movies and I liked sports. And that's kind of how my life was spent as a kid. Those were the two things I liked. If I'd go over to my coach's house where one of my best friends was his kid, I'd go to his house, we'd sit on the couch and we'd watch SportsCenter, we'd watch a game. I can remember

where I was for so many big sports moments in the early 2000s because of like just sports. Like I remember sitting on my, my coach's couch. He was the principal at the time. Uh, and me, him and his son were sitting on the couch on a Friday night. Might've been after we came home from a high school football game or whatever. I think it was a Friday night and we're sitting on his couch and the malice at the palace happens like live. We're watching it. We're like doesn't look good like oh holy shit like it was on ESPN it's happening live we watched it you know I remember the first time I ever saw HD television it changed my life we're over to house it's me coach his son Walt and we're over at one of the other teachers' houses because they're like best friends, and we're watching the national championship game,

the 2005 national championship basketball game, Illinois versus North Carolina at the Dome in St. Louis. And the picture was crystal clear on the TV. And I go, what is happening here? I looked at Mr. Rupert was his name Rupert I go Mr. Rupert how is the TV so clear and he takes the remote and takes it from like HD to standard and he goes well watch this it goes back to standard just kind of you know your typical fuzzy thing you're used to seeing and then he turns to HD and it's like my life changed. It's truly one of those moments in life. Like the first time you feel a titty and you're like, my life has changed.

My life changed the first time I saw HD, particularly sports in HD to the point that when I finally moved into my own place, my dad gave me his old 65 inch floor TV that was HD, but it was gigantic. Like this thing was like carrying a house. And we got it into this tiny apartment that I lived in. The TV took up most of the apartment. So my apartment had one chair and this giant TV. And I would sit there and turn on the golf channel when I would come home from work. This is in Baton Rouge. So I'd come home from work about 11 o'clock and I would just turn on the golf channel and watch in amazement as this crystal clear,

this 2009 crystal clear HD golf was on television and it was mind-blowing. It changed my life to the point that I went to the sporting goods store and bought those little foam practice golf balls and I would pull out my pitching wedge and I would just hit foam golf balls down the tiny little hall in this apartment that I lived in while I watched HD like Traveler's Championship on the Golf Channel. Like, ah, here's Brandel Chamblee with an update

on the back nine. And I would just do that shit. And it was amazing. Why am I telling you all of this? Well, because as an adult, I just view sports differently and whether it's because social media has kind of ruined it for me and to a degree it has whether it's because we just know more about these dudes now than we used to or maybe it's just natural you become an adult and you just kind of care less about certain things certain things especially sports related don't mean as much to me anymore and there's's a change that is being proposed in Major League Baseball that has people all pissed off, and I'm kind of like, I don't mind it. Let's do that after a couple of commercials.

All right, if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs, you've got to check out Pick 6 from DraftKings. When it comes to basketball payouts, DraftKings Pick 6 posterizes the competition, including prize picks. It's a very simple concept. Hit all your picks and score higher minimum payouts on Pick 6, plus even more cash if you outscore the competition. Pick 6 is available in most states, including Missouri, California, Texas, Georgia, and more. And I absolutely love it. Look, every night we're going to be having playoff basketball every night. So when you're sitting around and you might not have interest in a particular game, let's

say you're a fan of a particular team. They're not playing that night. Here's how you make it a little bit more fun for the other games. Build a little lineup there with Pick 6. It's really great. Me and my wife do it all the time, so make sure you do it. And new players get 50 in Pick 6 credits instantly on just a $5 entry. Download the DraftKings Pick 6 app now and use code INNES, that's my name, I-N-N-E-Ss for new customers to play five dollars get 50 and pick six credits better payouts bigger wins only with pick six from draft kings the crown is yours gambling problem

call 1-800-GAMBLER help is available for problem gambling call 888-789, 7, or visit ccpg.org in Connecticut. Must be 18 plus age and eligibility restrictions vary by jurisdiction. Pick six, not available everywhere, including New York and Ontario void where prohibited one per new customer bonus award. It is non-withdrawable pick six credits that expire in 14 days. Limited time offer. See terms at pick six dot draftings.com slash promos. All right, so one of my favorite topics

I used to do on the radio was like, how would you improve baseball or how would you improve sports? Give me like a rule that you would take and you would change about a sport. And a lot of times it was done kind of facetiously and we would do it as a joke and it'd be like, hey, let's put like dwarves on trampolines or shoot them out of cannons and if they catch a fly ball you're out

you know like banana ball type shit look at what's taking over the world banana ball banana ball comes to your town and the savannah bananas fill up your stadium three nights in a row they did it in baton roos done it in houston they do it everywhere people are kind of into the fun gimmicky aspect of sports now, the wacky golf aspect of sports. So Rob Manfred is the commissioner of Major League Baseball, and he says that there is buzz around the idea of a golden at bat rule. So MLB owners are into the idea of a golden at bat rule. What is the golden at bat rule well it's a proposal with a basic concept that is a team could choose one at bat in every game to use its best hitter regardless of where they are in the lineup so if the new york yankees had the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth they could bring aaron judge to the plate even if it wasn't his turn in the order it would be a

one-time replacement not a substitution like a pinch hitter uh and this uh there could be variations on it for instance jason stark points out restricting the rule only the team's trailing at the time could be an interesting constraint it could also lead to scenarios where a hitter bats one spot before his turn in the lineup so what happens if he gets on base that was my question about it but again there could be variations on it and i've seen people like pearl clutching over this on social media like oh my god I'll never watch baseball again well based on the ratings most you ain't watching fucking baseball as it is anyway because for the most part baseball is a long boring season in which the games mean absolutely nothing then you spend 162 games trying to get to the playoffs. And like what happened to the Astros this year, your season can be over in 28 hours. Baseball's got bigger problems than whether

or not you give a guy an at bat out of turn, which I'd be totally in favor of. Like I think cowherd who I think has a lot of dumb thoughts on things. But one thought I think it was cowherd used to have about baseball was baseball is the only sport where you pay these guys 20, 30, $40 million a year, and you're not guaranteed to have them in in the biggest spots in the game. In basketball, you pay LeBron all this money, and LeBron, unless he's fouled out, LeBron is going to be on the court in the biggest spot in the game. So at the end of the game, with the game on the line, LeBron, Kevin Durant, Michael Jordan, whomever, is going to be on the court and they have a chance to take the game winner.

Your best player has a chance to win the game for you in baseball, or basketball rather, every time. In football, Patrick Mahomes is going to be on the field with 11 seconds to go, needing to get a field goal to send the game to overtime. Can you imagine a world where Patrick Mahomes wouldn't be like, Oh, sorry, Patrick Mahomes spot in the order already came up. So here's, uh, here's, uh, uh, um, what's his name? Carson Wentz. Here's Carson Wentz to lead you down the field. I say I'm digging this idea because I find baseball to be largely boring. And that's coming from someone whose favorite sport was baseball for most of my life growing up. St. Louis Cardinals fan here.

And maybe it's because I'm jaded because my team now sucks. Maybe it's because my team is never going to be one of these big spending teams that's able to go and build a winner. You know, I'm not the Dodgers. I'm not the Phillies. I'm not the Yankees. There's a handful of teams in baseball that legitimately have a chance to win the World Series every year. And everybody else is just poverty at this point as far as organizations go. Let's make it like Caddyshack 2. Let's turn baseball into wacky golf. Let's get pinwheels and let's get windmills and let's get little people on the trampolines. Let's fuck shit up. Why not? Add something different to it. Like imagine, like, and if you're someone who's a

purist about it, you say this is ridiculous, fine. But let's say the season is on the line and you're an Astros fan and you have the option to bring one of the most clutch postseason hitters in the history of baseball up to the plate with the season on the line. That's Jose Altuve. That's fun. They might say it's unfair to the pitchers. Well, at this point, it's kind of like tough shit. You know what else will be unfair to the pitchers when no one watches baseball anymore? So it doesn't matter that you throw it 100 miles an hour.

Make the game at least give us the drama, you know, but I've also been a proponent of doing wacky shit in certain sports to make it more fun. My favorite rule that I've ever suggested, that's a somewhat realistic rule and it's never going to happen, but it's not like, you know, putting little people on trampolines and stuff and shooting them out of cannons. Or if a guy catches a ball in the stands, it an out like that's just wacky savannah banana shit but this is what i think is plausible and it could be done i think you should be allowed one kick per nfl game off of a t like a field goal off of a t now you again there's logistics that you'd have to work out there's other shit you'd have to look at and go okay how does this work how feasible is this what

should happen but imagine there's seven seconds to go and a team just kicked a go-ahead field goal right there's seven seconds on the clock you take a touchback on the next kick. You're down by two. You take the touchback. You get the ball at the 35-yard line, or wherever a touchback would be. Imagine you could put a tee. Now, you'd move it back seven yards. It'd be just like a field goal, right?

So you put the ball on the tee at like the 27 or wherever it would be, and you get one shot to kick it through the uprights from the 27. Now, it'd still be a same situation with a field goal, so they'd have a chance to go block it as well. It'd be set up just like it, but there'd be no snap. Or maybe you could really make it wacky, and there is a snap, so it puts extra pressure on you. Like the guy has to catch the snap, put it on the tee,

you have to boot it off of the tee, and you have to get that extra running start to get that so there's a bunch of factors tell me that wouldn't be fun what's more fun uh an 80 yard field goal attempt to win the game or some guy lateraling it six times to go four yards and they fall on it and the game is over that would be fun to me. That's to me a rule that while seemingly ridiculous is at least somewhat plausible. I could see a scenario where that would be fun and it would make the game more dramatic. Imagine dudes drilling 80 yard field goals through the uprights to win a game. That's fun. And there are a lot of purists that don't want to see shit fucked with. Well, guess what? The purest shit is over. Go to college football.

These dudes are getting paid to play the out front getting paid they're choosing to go to schools based on who's paying them the most money now and it's out there in the public that's the biggest different part of it now um you know that there's a bunch of purists screw purist shit change things up and make it wacky oh this will absolutely ruin baseball if you let them have this golden at-bat rule. I like it. If I have the option of seeing Chaz McCormick at the plate with the game on the line or Jose Altuve or Bregman at the plate with the game on the line, I'll take that. And don't tell me about the purity of baseball. Both leagues now have the designated hitter. There's no strategy involved in baseball. Baseball requires the least amount

of strategy on the planet. Baseball managers are largely pud pullers who've decided the moves they're going to make before the game even fucking starts. So you can lose me on the idea of how baseball strategy and blah, blah, what's that gonna do and it's not fair all I know is you'd think it's really fair if you had the option now I guess the only thing I would say is there has to be a sacrifice on the other side of it as well so like let's say once a game you would use this golden at bat rule to bring a guy up well what if it's if it's with two outs like let's say there's two outs in the inning or one out let's say there's one out and you take the risk of bringing him up if the batter is out and it's not a double play or

something maybe the inning is just over like that counts for two outs see there's something like, again, it's hokey and gimmicky and hacky, but who gives a shit? You're trying to make things more interesting. So maybe that would come into play. So you can make that move if you want, but just know it's the bottom of the ninth and the bases are loaded. Bases loaded, bottom of the ninth. Let's say you got the Astros.

Astros are at the plate. They bring Altuve up with the bases loaded. They bottom of the ninth. Let's say you got the Astros. Astros are at the plate. They bring Altuve up with the bases loaded. They're playing the Rangers. It's a big pennant drive game. Fine. It's called a playoff game. You're playing a playoff game. And in that moment, you are allowed to bring him up to the plate.

So now you have to make a decision. Like, do you stick with Bregman with one out, or do you stick with McCormick or whomever? Throw in whatever player you want. Just insert random name of Astros player of now or before so you put him in but you know that if you bring Altuve to the plate and Altuve gets an out it counts for double the outs or something like that I'm not saying it right but imagine that so if Altuve hit now but if he hits a sack fly, it doesn't count for two outs because a sack fly is a run scoring play. So if it's a run scoring play, it's not two outs.

So then what would happen is like, say it's a short pop-up into right field. If it's caught, it's two outs unless a run scores. So let's say you then have to send the runner from third on like a routine pop-up and just see what happens. Then we got hijinks. Again, I don't know if I described that well or not, but I would find that a lot more interesting. Baseball is just so boring to me. And the games are so meaningless for most of the season. And if you're a team like Cincinnati or soon to be St. Louis or Pittsburgh or, you know, 20 other teams in baseball,

your season's over before it starts. We might as well get dumb, get stupid, like maybe like, and then on the, okay. But on the flip side, so if you can have whatever hitter you want,

like you're allowed to bring whatever hitter you want to the plate in a big situation, the opposition should have the option to then bring out a pitching machine. And you can put that pitching machine up to like 150 miles an hour or something. I don't know how fast a pitching machine can go. But it could also throw curveballs. It would be great. You could program it from like your phone in the dugout so the manager's up there. He's like, all right, you want to bring up your best hitter? Well, I'm going to bring in Robo Pitcher.

And Robo Pitcher comes out there, and he's throwing like 150 gas and then like 130 mile an hour curveball, like a wiffle ball. There's a ball they sell. I forgot what it's called. But it's a wacky ball that you can play with in the backyard that when you throw it, it just does a foul. That's it. You get to throw that ball. The pitcher gets to throw that wacky ball. See now what's fun. I saved baseball. Look, I look, I don't want to brag, but I think I saved the game. So you're welcome. But anyway, in all seriousness, I like the idea of the golden at bat and i love

seeing all the people get all sad and worked up and i'll never watch baseball again and i can't believe we're messing with the game and it's like roger clemens bitching about i'm like bitch you were on steroids so like i think if you took steroids you lose your right to talk about the purity of the game i don't care that you took steroids but if you're someone who was like sticking a needle in your ass so you could pitch longer into your career let us not forget that roger clemens had a 1.87 era when he was like 40 so give me a fucking break roger clemens i'm all for you take all the steroids you want but if you're someone that wants to tell me about how the the purity of the game and the sanctity of the game is going to be destroyed by the gold net bat rule well stop shooting needles into your ass and taking steroids and bulking up and all that shit

so you can lose me with that oh the purity of the game well stop snorting fucking coke and taking amphetamines like so you can lose me with that i'm all for it give me the golden at bat rule please and thank you