One of baseball’s biggest young stars, Buster Bosey of the World Champion Giants, broke a bone in his left leg on Wednesday night. The injury occurred in a collision at the plate with Scott Cousins of the Florida Marlins. It didn’t take long for Posey’s agent, Jeff Berry, to respond to the incident and demand a rule change by Major League Baseball.
“If you go helmet to helmet in the NFL, it’s a $100,000 fine, but in baseball, you have a situation in which runners are [slamming into] fielders. It’s brutal. It’s borderline shocking. It just stinks for baseball. I’m going to call Major League Baseball and put this on the radar. Because it’s just wrong.”
The news about Posey is unfortunate; for Giants fans, fantasy owners and for the game of baseball as a whole. He was the NL Rookie of the Year and now is sidelined with a fractured fibula and three torn ligaments just two months into his second season. But, given all of that, I still disagree with Berry and think that baseball needs no changes in rules about plate collisions. Cousins wasn’t trying to hurt Posey, he was trying to win the game for his team in the 12th inning, which he did.
Berry’s comparison to football is a poor one. No one likes the NFL’s softening of its rules, neither fans nor players. You can’t have a player stop his momentum in the midst of a game altering play. No one likes to see injuries, but they happen and they will continue to happen. Softening the game isn’t the answer.
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It is unfortunate. I don’t think much can be done to protect catchers. The NCAA has a rule to do that, but even that wouldn’t have applied to Posey.
http://pinetarandbrickbats.blogspot.com/2011/05/excuse-me-i-want-to-score.html