If we take a look at Monday’s Dodgers-Padres game, it sure looks like Chase Utley has admitted nothing, accepted nothing and changed nothing after breaking Ruben Tejada’s leg last postseason.CBS has got some of the best coverage, with both video and GIF at the site. The Big Lead, among other sites, has more. To me, it’s pretty clear-cut: He’s going to take out Norris, no matter what, who seems to have played everything totally by the book per last year’s change in home-plate play rules.
Arguably, if anything, this was worse than the playoff collision at second precisely because of the home-plate rules already being in place for a year.
Utley had his original two-game suspension for the playoff incident dropped, even after Joe Torre called it “a rolling block that occurs away from the base.” And, although this play wasn’t at second, and his suspension was dropped, the rules for slides at second were addressed this offseason
So, will he get any real discipline this time?
ScoutsEdit: Just wanted to embed some the video of the slide.
That didn’t seem all that bad to me. Not nearly as bad as the Markakis slide, which was very clearly aiming at hitting another player, and is the exact reason for the rule.
http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/6479266/v572697283
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i don’t think that one is “dirty” like the utley slide from last year.
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Is it that hard to slide toward the base instead of sliding AT the defender? It isn’t, right. The base is right there….are they scary, so he just wants to get close to the defender for safety?
Imagine that same play but without Norris deftly stepping out of the way….very easily could have broken his ankle…during a blowout, on opening day, on a play where he’s out by 10 feet.
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It’s hard to imagine Utley taking a more direct route towards a collision there.
If he slides to the outside and tries to swipe his hand across the back of the plate, maybe he’s actually safe. Instead, he tries a take-out tackle-slide like the piece of shit he is. I wish Norris would have “accidentally” punched him in the face with the tag instead of getting him on the chest.
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Thanks for the embed … tried to figure out how to do that on WordPress’s dashboard.
That said, I agree with Paper and Lefty myself. Plus, Utley has a reputation that Markakis doesn’t. And, Lefty says what others say: had he done some sort of wrap-around and reach-back, he might be safe.
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My pleasure! If it’s a Twitter link such as the one I used, you just copy/paste the link and WordPress does the rest for you. Occasionally fails, but usually works pretty smoothly. I think you have to do it from the web-browser editor though and not from the app or anything like that.
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So, theoretically (like Blogger) it should do similar with a YouTube embed code if it’s that rather than a Twitter video? Got it and I’ll try that next time.
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This will be shown as exhibit A of the Wussification of Baseball on another baseball board I frequent.
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Dam straight! Next thing yuh know they’ll be playin’ in dresses!
Git me another beer.
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John Jay is screwing the crap out of James Shields in the fourth inning tonight. Daddys brought this guy in to shore up a pathetic OF defense, but he looks awful out there.
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Well, on the flip side of the trade behind that, Gyorko had his first homer.
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It could have been worse. Kemp recovered just in time to keep from playing a Justin Turner shot into a triple in the same inning. Justin Turner only hits doubles and triples apparently.
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Let’s dispel once and for all with the ficiton that Chase Utley doesn’t know what he is doing, he knows exactly what he is doing. You can see his glove is tiny, you all know what that means……he can’t make the All-star team!
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