Could the White Sox strike Gold(en) with new Manfred idea?
Well, the Golden At-Bat would need to be expanded a wee bit
As the Winter Meetings get set to start, there will be much talk about what free agent may go where and what trades might occur, but let’s face it, the most important discussions will be about the latest idea floated by the Manfred Man himself.
That, of course, is the concept of the Golden At-Bat.
In case you somehow missed it, the man who turned extra innings into a farce has thought of a way to put more offense into the game — the game wouldn’t be baseball any more, but still presumably a game. Once a game, under various scenarios that have been sent into the cloud, a team faced with a lousy hitter due up in a key situation could pull a better batter from elsewhere in the lineup and have him bat instead.
This particular proposal would be of great use to many teams, but not the White Sox; unless Luis Robert Jr. is retained and regains his 2023 form, the Sox have no players worth plugging into the Golden slot. But there are extensions of the concept that could be really helpful.
Thanks to James Bond, we could have the Gold(en) Finger. If a batter strikes out, he raises one finger and gets another try. The same could work for a catcher after ball four is called. And either could call for an improved version of pitch track: the Golden Eye.
Should a batter pop up, a là so many Sox hitters, he would naturally raise his arm high, calling for a Golden Opportunity and get another shot at it.
Not that batters would have all the edge. An old Frank Sinatra noir film provides a big boost for the White Sox. As it stands, if a ball is hit to left field, all baserunners just keep going because they know there’s no chance Andrew Benintendi will throw them out. What we need is the (Man With a) Golden Arm rule, with play stopping the instant Benintendi touches the ball, allowing another player, probably a pitcher, to come out to left and take over, at which point play resumes and the runners dare not try to take an extra base against a player who can actually throw.
More widely, since the Sox have no infielders who hit better than .180 and can catch a baseball, we need the Golden Glove rule, not to be confused with the Gold Glove — just the opposite. If one of the many White Sox incompetent defenders boots a play, he raises his glove and the batter has to go back and hit again.
The concept would be excellent for baserunning. For the runner, if he gets called out trying to steal, he invokes the Golden Fleece (great pun and use of classical reference if I do say so myself) and gets the base. If the runner is called safe, the fielder invokes Willy Wonka (less classical of a reference, but more widely known) and issues a Golden Ticket, forcing the runner to go back.
Naturally, if a fielder misses a tag he gets to play Midas and invoke the Golden Touch. A runner, on the other hand, could invoke the Golden Rule and insist that the fielder should not have tagged him because he would not have done unto himself such a thing.
The list of possibilities is long, even if you avoid Golden Shower and Golden Rod so embarrassed parents don’t have to try to explain the source of the idea to curious children. Golden Arches, Golden Goose, Golden Handshake, Golden Age, Golden Oldies could all fit in somewhere. Feel free to add to the list.
All of which show that Rob Manfred’s Golden Parachute can come none too soon.
CRYPTOSOX ANSWER from last week’s puzzle
This game will humble you at any time. It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what team you’re on. It’s just the way the game is. — Pedro Grifol
See, not absolutely everything the man said was idiotic.