The Crane Pool Forum

metirish wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 5:52 am Manfred says there is buzz around the Golden At-Bat rule , I just can't imagine this happening, it's awful


https://www.si.com/mlb/rob-manfred-buzz ... e-baseball

Marshmallowmilkshake wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 5:14 pm I was just a kid when the DH was introduced, and I don't remember the announcement or the buildup. Wonder how people responded then.

MFS62 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 5:58 pm I still hat the DH rule, and I've told that to Ron Blomberg (the first ever DH).
Since then he has written on his Facebook page that he hates the rule himself and wished it had never become a rule. He then (jokingly) asked forgiveness from all true baseball fans.

Later

Frayed Knot wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 5:35 pmBut it then just sort of became permanent without ever officially being designated as such like some government program that keeps going on just out of sheer momentum and the lack of anyone wanting to be the one to kill it.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 5:50 pm If this golden at-bat was implemented 125 years ago, nobody today would question the rule. The golden at-bat would be viewed as normal a tactic as the double-switch. And the poets would be waxing poetic about how perfect the game of baseball is with this golden at-bat.

And if the Commissioner then decided today, to suddenly eliminate the golden at bat after 125 years of uninterrupted use and tradition and history, youse would all be going apeshit over the rule's removal.

Frayed Knot wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 5:35 pm

Marshmallowmilkshake wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 5:14 pm I was just a kid when the DH was introduced, and I don't remember the announcement or the buildup. Wonder how people responded then.

Some liked it, some didn't. Pretty much the same as now.
It came on the heels of an offensive drought although the depths of that drought was a half decade in the rearview by that point so it was kind of an answer to a problem that was already solving itself (with the help of the post-'68 mound/strike zone tweaks).

But what the DH was Really all about was that the AL was in a attendance and competitive slog due to several factors:
- much slower on the whole in signing black and Latin players they had less young talent, less exciting talent, and more aging players who would fit the DH mold
- the AL spent so long being a one-team dependent circuit (you either loved the Yanx or loved to hate them) it's not a coincidence that the rule was implemented following the decade long crash of their main meal ticket. Mantle, Berra, and Ford, the team stunk, and the draft prevented them from stocking all the future stars as they had for decades.
Think about it: by the late-'60's/early '70s the NL had the better (on field and at the turnstiles) New York team, Los Angeles team, Chicago team, Missouri team, and Ohio team. That's half the league and most of the big markets with the rest of the markets being, at best, a draw meaning the AL had the advantage virtually nowhere.

It was an 'experimental rule' which was supposed to expire if it wasn't constantly renewed every so often. Remember when the NFL killed instant replay after having it for a short time? ... same idea (the NFL later re-voted it back into existence after a few years without). But it then just sort of became permanent without ever officially being designated as such like some government program that keeps going on just out of sheer momentum and the lack of anyone wanting to be the one to kill it.