Mike Francesa cannot fathom that Rob Manfred floated the idea of a “Golden At-Bat.”
The MLB commissioner recently suggested the idea that once a game, a team could send a batter to the plate regardless of where they were in the lineup, telling Puck’s John Ourand that “there was a little buzz around it at an owners’ meeting.”
On his eponymous podcast Wednesday, Francesa said he could not believe Manfred was being serious and threatened to end his viewership of the sport altogether if the rule was ever enacted.
“All I’ll say about that is the day that they adopt the ‘Golden At-Bat,’ baseball and I cease to exist together,” Francesa said.
“That is not the sport that I grew up with and I cannot even fathom, I cannot even seriously interject that that is a real possibility. That changes the game so fundamentally, it changes every part of the game. It changes the history of the game. It changes evaluation of players. It changes everything! To me it’s not even something to discuss. I don’t take it seriously.”
Francesa continued to lampoon the idea.
“And if I’m wrong and they adopt it, like I said, then baseball’s just become a clown show and it’s over. I don’t even know why Manfred would discuss that, unless he had nothing to do and he just wanted a couple of headlines,” he said.
“That is, to me, so far past the realm of possibility in any real world. How can baseball even think of such a thing? They can’t. I can’t even consider it as a real option.”
Later in the podcast, Francesa read an email from a listener asking what he thought about the idea.
“I cannot under any circumstances take this seriously,” Francesa said.
“I would think the commissioner fell on his head or something. This is so patently ridiculous that it’s not even baseball anymore. What are we doing? It’s so ridiculous I cannot even dignify it with an answer.”
