About That Hard Slide

I suppose we have all seen it, those who care at least marginally about baseball.  On Saturday night, the Los Angeles Dodgers second-baseman Chase Utley slid into second to break up a double play and allow a tying tun to score in the second game of the National League playoffs.  In the process, he slid sufficiently wide of the bag to make hard contact with the shortstop, Ruben Tejada of the opposing New York Mets.

"Hard contact" indeed; the impact broke a bone in Tejada's leg and forced him out of the remainder of the season.  As I write this, the pundits of baseball are debating a few things, such as how clean or dirty the play was, and whether the takeout slide at second should be outlawed or modified, or whether those complaining are just wimps.  They have suspended Utley for two games, but then failed to hear his appeal in time to prevent his being able to play in the first of those games.

I have had the advantages, at least in terms of independence, first of not having a rooting interest in either of the teams involved; second, because Major League Baseball absurdly let the game start after 9pm in the time zone of one of the teams, I didn't watch it live; and third, I heard almost none of the debate I reference above.  So I think I can indeed be objective.

I've watched the play many times.  Clearly, Utley started his slide very late; Tejada got a fairly poor throw and was so out-of-position that in fact, after video review the umpiring crew decided that his foot never touched second and Utley was declared safe.  Utley started sliding almost as he reached the bag and crashed into Tejada's leg past second.

The rules are clear enough; in order for a slide to be deemed legal, the sliding player must either touch the base in his slide or be close enough for a part of his body to touch the base.  While sliding, Utley reached out to touch second.  His hand did not make contact but flew over the base's "air space", making him close enough to be declared well within range of the rule's tenet.  The slide was legal.

Chase Utley is known as a hard player but not a dirty one.  Most players would want him on their teams, for sure, or at least would have when he was a bit younger.  One salient piece of evidence to that is that the arguments that I have heard are all about the rule, and not about punishing Utley himself.  Of course, as I write, the slide was certainly legal, but a different player, more of a Ty Cobb spikes-first type of player, would have inserted a lot more venom in the discussion no matter how legal it was deemed.

Last year, MLB struggled to try to implement a rule regarding plays at home plate.  Collisions between scoring runners and catchers blocking the plate -- there is a long history of those -- had broken too many bones of both over the years.  Under the new rules, catchers are obliged to allow a sliding "lane" until they actually have the ball in hand, whereupon the tag can be made without blind collision.  The runners, too, may no longer slide in such a way as to try clearly to dislodge the ball from the catcher's grasp by collision.

If the home plate collision rule is the guide, then at the same time we can and should accept Utley's play as simply "hard-nosed baseball", there is a place to modify the rules regarding sliding into second -- possibly.

I believe that after 115 years of modern-day baseball, we have seen about everything that might require a rules change.  Baseball didn't have to change the home plate collision rule, and certainly didn't because of one particular incident but, rather, a body of incidents.  Likewise, many shortstops and second basemen have been hurt in the double-play breakup slide, and this play should not make a difference either.

I would be quite content if the rules stayed the same.  If a modest tweak is required, I'm tolerant.  If the takeout slide is removed, I'll be very disappointed and regard it as a significant wussification of the game I most follow.  You have doubtlessly seen certain of the, um, more corpulent "athletes" incapable of running hard into second on ground balls, turning toward right field to avoid the play.  Ty Cobb would shake his head.

I wish MLB good luck figuring out what to do.  It was OK to say that the runner can't slide too far from the base to impede the infielder; I get that.  I just find it hard to imagine how to improve the rule any further.  How, for example, would you have stopped what happened with Utley and Tejada?  You can't, for example, try too hard to legislate when the runner has to start his slide, i.e., when a runner is trying to decide whether:
(A) He can actually get to the base ahead of the fielder
(B) If he can't get to the base ahead of the fielder, he can or cannot get in the way of the fielder
(C) If he can impede the throw, he can or cannot do so while staying close enough to the base

So what, while he is contemplating all that, now he is also supposed to figure out where to start his slide to avoid running afoul of a rule as to when he must start sliding?

I don't know if MLB's competition and rules committees will ultimately do anything.  I just hope that, while they're struggling to lessen the number of infielders' broken legs, they avoid giving runners even more to think about, in the middle of what are clearly reaction plays.

I wonder what fans of the Mets are thinking at this point.  Chase Utley played many years for the Philadelphia Phillies in the Mets' division.  They saw Utley about 18-19 games every year; they know the kind of player he is.  There are probably plenty of thoughtful Mets fans who, while they are livid at losing their shortstop, don't believe that the call was wrong, or that the rule needs to be changed; certainly not that it should be changed because of a single play.

After 115 years, one incident ought not to influence the rules that way.  Glad to hear your view in Comments.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
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