Take Out ... Slide?

Controversy inevitably rears its ugly head in almost any playoff, and last night it appeared in rather spectacular fashion in Game 2 of the NLDS between the Mets and Dodgers. What would turn out to be one of the decisive plays in the game is one that is going to be the focal point of debate for quite some time.

In the 7th inning, with the Mets leading 2-1 on the back of a pretty solid pitching performance from Noah Syndergaard in his post-season debut, the Dodgers threatened with runners on first and third and one out. Howie Kendrick hit a ground ball up the middle that was fielded by Daniel Murphy who flipped the ball to shortstop Ruben Tejada covering second. As Tejada turned, presumably to spin and fire to first to attempt to complete the double play, Chase Utley took him out. The tying run scored from third in the process. Two batters later Adrian Gonzalez doubled to the wall and then scored as Jacob Turner followed suit. That put the Dodgers up 5-2. That was the ball game.

The problem was Utley's takeout ... slide. It wasn't a takeout slide, it was more like a barrel-roll hipcheck that sent Tejada head over heels and ultimately broke his leg. Not only could it barely be considered a slide, it was late as Utley was well past second base when he dropped down, and wasn't completely on the ground when he made contact with Tejada. In short, it was probably the dirtiest attempt to break up a double play that I have ever seen.

Then of course the umpires made a complete mess of the situation as Tejada was being tended to before eventually being carted off the field. The Dodgers challenged the play and it was ruled that even though Chase Utley never touched second base (in fact, he was never within a one foot radius of it), he was safe because Tejada's foot missed second base by about half an inch, and because Utley was called out, he never had the opportunity to reach back a touch the bag. Hmmm.

This was the third such collision I had observed in the 2015 MLB Postseason, slides in which the runner advancing to second base on a ground ball started their slide past second base and made zero attempt to touch it, instead zeroing in on the middle infielder trying to turn the double play. I was wondering how much longer this trend would go on before something bad would happen. Turns out last night was it.

The unfortunate truth is that in most sports it takes an incident like this before anything happens. Even more unfortunate is that a rule actually exists to help protect middle infielders from these types of collisions, but MLB has chosen for years to completely ignore it. In fact, I can't recall a single instance in which an umpire has called interference on a takeout slide. Why? Who knows.

Then of course the dinosaurs that played in the 1970s (cough, Pete Rose, cough) come out and say it's hard baseball or its always been part of the game or any other number of antiquated cliches justifying this macho show of power which serves only to injure an opposing player. News bulletin: We entered the 21st century 15 years ago, get with the times please.

I thought Ken Rosenthal said it best: "It is illogical to have a rule protecting catchers and not one protecting middle infielders. Needs to change." I'm with him 100%. Time to help protect middle infielders. And that's not to suggest that baseball should eliminate these collisions entirely or that runners need to go out of their way to avoid contact, but they need to get these dirty blatant takeout slides that serve only to put the middle infielder on his ass out of the game. Instead of the current code that says the runner needs to be close enough that he can theoretically touch the base, how about forcing the runner to actually touch the base?

I've always been a hard-nosed ball player who tried to play the game "the right way" as they say. I've tried to break up my share of double plays in my day, and even succeeded a few times. It's gotten me in trouble before, and after I actually did injure a player doing it several years ago (thankfully, not severely), I realized that I had to stop. Going for a player and trying to knock them down was just asking for trouble. That's not who I am, or at least not who I want to be.

So I stopped going for the fielder specifically. My own personal rule now is aim for whatever corner of the base the fielder is closest to and slide straight into it. Don't go after the guy, go after the base. If there's contact, there's contact, but I felt like I needed to change my mentality before something really bad happened. As it happens, even that isn't good enough for certain shortstops out in Mississauga, but that's a whole different story. I don't think that's an unreasonable compromise, and maybe it's something that MLB needs to consider. If these guys are really trying to get to second base and not the fielder, then maybe they should have to actually get to second base.

Part of the reason I love baseball so much is that it is almost purely a skill game. There's none of this macho intimidation chest thumping non-sense you see in contact sports like hockey or football. No scrums after whistles. No guys yelling after a big body check or tackle to try to intimidate his opponents. Incidents like these, and the home plate collisions of yesterday are exciting for about a split second until you realize that the catcher has been knocked out cold or has a broken leg. Is it really worth it?

I think it's important to remember that these are human beings playing what is supposed to be a non-contact sport. No one wants to see anyone get hurt on a baseball field.

At least they shouldn't.

-matt