Baseball Gets The Call Right

1970.  High-school-age Buster was watching the major league baseball All Star Game on TV.  Those were the pre-cable days.  Where I grew up, we got regular broadcasts of the Cleveland Indians, and that was about it.  Naturally, I was an Indians fan, which was tough duty back then.  But they had some good young players, one of whom was catcher Ray Fosse, who made the that year's A.L. All Star team.  In a famously violent homeplate collision, the N.L.'s Pete Rose (a great but cocky player who I never liked) scored from third not by sliding into home but by lowering his shoulder, plowing into Fosse and knocking him ass over teacups and into next Tuesday.  In today's NFL, Rose's play would've drawn a flag, but of course the game was baseball.  Rose was just fine.  Fosse was never the same player.

1974. College-age Buster (on hiatus from higher education) was playing slow-pitch softball in a City of Westerville work league.  The skill level was not high.  I was in the outfield for the Public Service Dept. team.  Our opponent that day was the Electric Dept.  Their best player, a big cocky asshole, was on second.  There was a base hit, and the big A-hole rounded third and headed for home.  In the time-honored tradition of slow-pitch, our worst athlete was behind the plate.  His name was Pat, and he was just a little guy, but he was up the line a bit, dug in and gamely trying to block the plate as the throw came in.  Just like Rose, the Electric Dept. douche gave no thought to a slide.  Just like Rose, he lowered his shoulder and rammed like runaway truck into poor little Pat, whose left femur snapped in two.  Sounded like a gunshot.  I could hear it clearly from the outfield.  I could also hear Pat's screams.  It was pretty gruesome.

Since that time, I enjoyed another two decades of playing rec league and work league softball, and watched my son play ten years worth of summer league and school ball.  For all those hundreds of games, the rule was well-known and always the same:  If you're a baserunner and there is a close play at the base, including home, you get down or get out of the way, or you're out.  You may not just run over the fielder and crush him like a grape.  The rule is safe and sensible, and doesn't detract in the slightest from the quality of play.

However, in the bigs, they didn't see it that way and continued to allow, even encourage, the Rose-style homeplate trainwreck.  "That's baseball" was the rationalization.  Meanwhile, decades-worth of catchers and baserunners lost their senses and various body parts in muy macho, full-speed carnage at the plate.

The high muckety-mucks of MLB, having learned a thing or two about concussions and such, changed all that for the better yesterday.  Henceforth, catchers may not put themselves in  harm's way by blocking the plate, and baserunners may not imitate steam rollers and try to grease catchers in an attempt to score.  No football plays.  No head-hunting, no "targeting".  Homeplate will now have the same slide-and-tag protocol as any other base.

Essentially, the big-leaguers will adopt the same common-sense rule that has for many years governed little kids in coach-pitch leagues.  Naturally, Pete Rose has voiced his opposition to this decision.  "What's the game coming to?" kvetches Charlie Asshole . . . excuse me, Charlie Hustle.

If Pete objects, it must be a very good call.