MLB votes to eliminate home-plate collisions

[scrounge]

Originally Posted by Manny A

Those collisions DO serve a purpose. If the runner manages to dislodge the ball from the catcher during the collision, he prevents an out, likely will score a run, and maybe even allow other runners to advance. I seriously doubt the runner goes into the collision with the mindset that all he's trying to do is hurt the opposing player, and has no intent of scoring.

You could make the exact same argument to allow a runner to barrel into F6 at 2B as well. What's the difference? I'm perfectly fine eliminating this play from the game, it's rare enough that no one will really notice and isn't at all integral to the game.

[Manny A]

Originally Posted by scrounge

You could make the exact same argument to allow a runner to barrel into F6 at 2B as well. What's the difference? I'm perfectly fine eliminating this play from the game, it's rare enough that no one will really notice and isn't at all integral to the game.

I'm only pointing out DG's faulty premise that the collisions at home serve no purpose other than to inflict injury, that's all. If that were really the case, the practice would have gone away a long time ago, because teams would retaliate the act. The fact that they don't--even when their catcher gets seriously injured--proves that the practice is accepted for what it is really meant to be: a way to try and score.

And I would argue that, historically, it was integral to the game. It was much more common in the past. The reason that it's rare nowadays is because catchers don't put themselves in harm's way as much as they used to. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that players are much bigger and stronger than before, so catchers have learned to stop setting up in the basepath.