There are still some, a handful of hypocritical holdouts, who believe in plays like the takeout slide. They claim that it’s a necessary evil of the game, like umpires calling balls and strikes or the Phillie Phanatic dancing on top of dugouts. They champion the tactic, and others like it, as the “old school” style of play.
What they fail to realize is that the men who played during the “old school” era were toothpicks compared to the powerful players of today. We as a species have morphed into big, strong mongoloids, and nowhere is this more clearly on display than sports. 400-pound offensive linemen can snap a quarterback’s spine like it was a pencil. Speedy power forwards can throw an extant elbow that breaks multiple bones in a defender’s face. And advancing runners can slide late with their spikes up, not even aim for the base they’re attempting to steal, and break a shortstop’s leg with utter impunity.
Before I go any further, let me say that I have always been a fan of Chase Utley, and what happened in Game 2 of the NLDS between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets hasn’t changed my opinion of him one iota. He is not the villain here. Baseball’s refusal to outlaw plays like this, plays solely designed to injure a peer, is the real crime.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, I’d recommend reading a description of the play rather than watching the tape: Utley, on a single up the middle by Howie Kendrick, charges for second base as Ruben Tejada, covering the bag, receives the ball from Daniel Murphy. Utley clearly doesn’t begin his slide until he’s almost parallel with the base – a mental error even T-ballers don’t make – and he very obviously aims directly for Tejada’s ankles. Naturally, Tejada can’t complete the throw and the play is over. The tying run scores for the Dodgers in a game they eventually won 5-2. After review, the call (Utley was out at second) is overturned not because Utley didn’t touch the bag, but because Tejada didn’t. Moreover, this particular umpiring crew apparently believes that a runner who never touches the base should be awarded it anyway. Who knows, maybe he would have gotten there if he didn’t feel the need to inadvertently snap another player’s fibula?
It’s astonishing that, with the rising awareness of concussions and other violent injuries possible in athletics, this kind of thing still happens with alarming frequency in baseball. MLB actually has a rule in effect meant to punish plays like the one last night. Rule 6.05, and the pertinent comment, follows:
“A batter is out when — (m) A preceding runner shall, in the umpire’s judgment, intentionally interfere with a fielder who is attempting to catch a thrown ball or to throw a ball in an attempt to complete any play:
Rule 6.05(m) Comment: The objective of this rule is to penalize the offensive team for deliberate, unwarranted, unsportsmanlike action by the runner in leaving the baseline for the obvious purpose of crashing the pivot man on a double play, rather than trying to reach the base. Obviously this is an umpire’s judgment play.”
If it’s a judgment call, the ones in charge of making the call flubbed it. Instant replay is still an imperfect science (or so they tell us), but it doesn’t seem possible to watch that play and honestly say that Utley did nothing wrong.
Some players, both past and present, chimed in to defend Utley and the play. The first is somewhat defensible; the second one decidedly is not. There is simply no rational defense of a play which is intended to cause harm to others. Again, I must stress that it doesn’t seem like the play was malicious. It’s a play that both Utley and Tejada have executed hundreds of times, both alternating between playing the part of the runner and that of the defender. Anyone who thinks Utley wanted to intentionally hurt Tejada is fooling themselves. None of this makes up for the fact that the Mets are now without one of their better players for the remainder of their postseason run, nor does it negate the fact that this could have been avoided.
We have ample (and recent) precedent for the creation of a rule that attempts to staunch the increasing number of serious injuries. Remember early in the 2011 season when Scott Cousins barreled into Buster Posey at home plate, causing Posey to miss the remainder of the year? Just a few years later, the so-called Buster Posey rule outlawing collisions at home goes into effect. It took us decades to finally say “Hey, maybe getting pummeled by the human equivalent of a locomotive isn’t the best thing for a catcher,” despite numerous careers ending through similar scenarios. Think there will ever be a Ruben Tejada rule? If there is, we won’t see it until after next season, when baseball’s Collective Bargaining Agreement is once again up for renewal.
I’m not so naïve that I believe we can fully eradicate any play that can potentially injure a player. These are testosterone machines playing at the apex of their capabilities, someone is invariably going to get hurt. But what kind of fans are we, and what kind of people are baseball’s higher ups, if we don’t at least demand a safer game for those involved? Tejada is simply an unfortunate stand-in, a surrogate for our personal favorite player. It can happen to any ballplayer, and it does happen to an awful lot of them. Needless trauma is just that, so why not take some steps to prevent as much of it as possible? Not only does MLB have a responsibility to protect their employees, but players have the right to play the game they love without fear of endangering their livelihoods. One can only hope something is done soon.
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