The irony of baseball is that everyone understands it wasn’t meant to be a contact sport, but yet when a player gets injured due to an overly-aggressive play, many people argue that you cannot fault a player for playing hard.
During a regular season game the story blows over by the time the next game starts, but in the playoffs it’s a whole different animal and the debate will never end.
After watching the now-infamous slide tackle by The Notorious C.H.A.S.E., I decided to consult with a couple of the brightest minds in high school baseball here on Long Island to get their take.
Their opinions fell in line with what I expected.
“I’m all for hard nosed play but it can’t be dirty. I felt his slide was dirty for two reasons:
1) It was so late that he passed the bag already and,
2) – his body hit the player before it hit the ground.”
That was Hauppauge’s Head Coach Josh Gutes expressing his view on the play. As it pertains to high school baseball he said, “With the HS rules, the player has to slide straight into the bag and can’t pop up (where the MLB rules are as long as they can reach and get a piece of the bag they are okay). The rules are pretty cut and dry in HS so I just have my players get there as fast as they can to be more of a deterrent than anything,” he added.
Earlier this season, Pirates’ second base Jung Ho Kang was injured on a takeout slide by Chris Coghlan of the rival Chicago Cubs
Umpires tend to be extremely prudent in what they allow. I have been involved in a number of games where the umpire called the runner and batter out–deeming that the runner went out of his way to take out the infielder. Even being the pitcher in that situation, I felt that the umpire was incorrect in his assessment. Sometimes the player will slide directly in to second base, but the umpire will still call interference as he considered the slide to be late or too aggressive.
A similar call was made during a 2010 game at Centereach. The base runner, Nick Luciani, made no attempt to injure the infielder or even leave the base line.
“That was nowhere near the Utley play,” said Centereach Head Coach Michael Herrschaft.
“In the case of Utley, I think that was bordering on the line of dirty,” he said. Herrschaft added that he encourages his players to be aggressive in breaking up the double play but the rules do not allow for any type of contact which negates the degree of aggressiveness that you can have.
It is important to note, a runner can have an impact on the play without coming in contact of the infielder. By simply running hard and closing in on him, he can cause a distraction to the infielder and potentially cause a bobble on the transfer or an off-line throw.
It seems that Utley has made a habit of crossing the line during his Major League career. He had another incident in 2010 during Tejada’s rookie season.
Oh look, here’s another example of Utley “”playing the right way”.
Met fans do not forget incidents like this. It is one of the reasons he will not be invited to throw out the first pitch if the Mets make the World Series. In fact, he shouldn’t expect anyone to hold a door for him, either.
In any event, baseball is filled with uber-competitive players. It lends itself to heated debates such as this one. I enjoy an intense argument as much as the next rabid baseball fan but, in this case, I don’t even see the opposing side to this argument. Feel free to comment or tweet me your opinion.
Vinny is the President of Axcess Baseball. He is a 2013 graduate of Adelphi University and he is currently the Long Island area scout for the San Diego Padres
