"Ban on plate collisions seen as likely"

[SE Minnestoa Re]

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.

Ray Fosse--One guy put out of baseball by this type of play is one too many

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by SE Minnestoa Re

Ray Fosse--One guy put out of baseball by this type of play is one too many

And Bryce Harper for a time.

[Manny A]

Originally Posted by SE Minnestoa Re

Ray Fosse--One guy put out of baseball by this type of play is one too many

Alright, let's be accurate here. The hit did not directly take him out of baseball right away. It happened in the 1970 All Star game, and he retired in 1979. He played 130+ games for Cleveland and Oakland in '71 thru '73. As late as 1977, he played 89 games with Cleveland and Seattle, and batted a decent .276, including .353 in the 11 games with the Mariners. And he won two World Series rings with the A's in '73 and '74.

Also, he was misdiagnosed after the collision when an X-ray of his shoulder was read as negative. It was only after another X-ray a year later showed that he did have a shoulder fracture and separation, and that the injury healed itself improperly. If they had seen the fracture and separation initially, he might've healed properly and played many more games than he did.

So to say the collision took him out of baseball is quite a stretch. Was it uncalled for? Perhaps, but only from the perspective that it happened during an All-Star game. If this was a regular- or post-season game, it wouldn't have received the same level of criticism. And I don't believe Fosse ever considered the hit, in and of itself, as dirty. He is more bitter that Rose hasn't been very sympathetic since the play. But that's just Pete being Pete.

[voiceoflg]

So should all out runs to the outfield wall be banned? If the purpose is to lessen injuries, then those should be outlawed as well.