[scrounge]

Originally Posted by Manny A

Under what pretense? To minimize injuries? Or is there some other reason why you feel it must be eliminated?

Like ozzy mentioned, these are professionals. They make millions of dollars to score more runs than their opponents. Sometimes, they need to put themselves in harms way to either score them or prevent them. It's the nature of the game.

I may be wrong, but I'm guessing that the real reason behind the prohibitions in amateur play is more to prevent tempers from flairing than it is to minimize injury. Oh, sure, the rules writers will say the FPSR prevents injuries, and perhaps they are right. But I'm thinking that they had seen way too many fights in high school games result from slides that took out pivot men at second base, and that's the real reason they came up with the FPSR.

In the grand scheme, how often does a professional catcher suffer a debilitating injury from a collsion at home? I'm willing to bet they have more concussion-like symptoms from balls fouled into their masks. For every Buster Posey incident, there are probably 25-50 crashes that occur in a season where the two players simply end up with dirty uniforms and a couple of bruises.

It just so happens that there were two that took place in the Red Sox/Tigers ALCS game, with one resulting in the catcher sustaining a strained ligament. If this were a game in June, I seriously doubt it would have been a blip on the radar screen, much less an article in the paper.

I just don't think it's needed or adds anything to the game at all. Yes, they are professionals and make millions. Not sure why that axiomatically means crashes are good. Actually I'd say that these assets are way too valuable to risk in the relatively rare plate collision. I just don't think it's a big deal if it's removed or would change the nature of the game at all. Beanballs used to be tolerated much more as part of the nature of the game but aren't today. The game will live on and we won't even miss it much.