MLB’s New Extra Innings Rule Includes Actual Pitcher’s Duel

by Clay Beyersdorfer

NEW YORK - In its never-ending quest to make the game more exciting for younger fans, Major League Baseball announced Monday that starting in 2023, the league would be adding a live-action pitcher’s duel to settle the score of every game that goes into extra innings.

“Our research showed that young people have the propensity to watch violent television programs like Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, or the NFL, so we started to think of ways we could bring that onto the ball diamond,” said MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in a press conference. “Then it hit us - what better way to increase the lethality of our game than to have two pitchers fight with swords on the field until one of them is slain in the heat of battle? A true pitcher’s duel!”

Manfred also addressed the potential long-term effects of turning opposing players into combatants. 

“We may have to adjust roster sizes, as many of them will die,” he added. “But that is just the price of sports and entertainment these days, one that I am willing to pay if it keeps ‘America’s pastime’ going.”

Despite the announcement, there was no word yet on whether Manfred’s proposal of “sacrificing the batboys to honor the almighty baseball gods” during the seventh-inning stretch would also be included in next season’s set of rule changes.

End of the Bench will have more as this story develops.