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Auggie

(31,067 posts)
Sat Mar 2, 2013, 10:41 AM Mar 2013

Creating a safer home plate

by Bruce Jenkins, San Francisco Chronicle / 3-2-13

The safety proponents win. There's a pervasive trend in sports to reduce serious injuries, particularly to the head, and as we see each year in the NFL, it's a never-ending campaign forcing significant rules changes along the way.

Who's to argue? The health-conscious thinkers should win. That's why a lot of baseball people believe that a so-called Buster Posey rule, designed to prevent collisions at home plate, will be implemented within a year or two.

When St. Louis manager Mike Matheny aligned himself with the Giants' Bruce Bochy in advocating a rule change, it got everyone's attention. Matheny was among the game's toughest catchers in his day, and he'd been defending the old-school ways until his recent change of heart. Now you've got the two most influential catchers in the National League, Posey and Yadier Molina, playing for managers in search of change.

Under new rules, favored by Bochy since Posey's gruesome injury almost two years ago, catchers would stake out a "lane," forcing runners to find a separate lane and slide in that direction, with each man forbidden to initiate contact. This is hardly a clear-cut issue. Two other managers, Cleveland's Terry Francona and the Angels' Mike Scioscia, raised the predicament of a catcher setting up on one side of the plate but forced off his spot by an errant throw.

Full column: http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Creating-a-safer-home-plate-4322431.php

A sound argument. Embrace it.

8 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Creating a safer home plate (Original Post) Auggie Mar 2013 OP
The Ray Fosse Rule?? madinmaryland Mar 2013 #1
You could name it the Rose rule too Auggie Mar 2013 #2
sorry auggie wilt the stilt Mar 2013 #3
There's a difference between playing hard and deliberate injury ... Auggie Mar 2013 #4
So why block the plate? Buzz Clik Mar 2013 #6
it was not deliberate wilt the stilt Mar 2013 #5
Here's Fosse's account, from the San Francisco Chronicle, 1999: Auggie Mar 2013 #7
Fosse account is correct wilt the stilt Mar 2013 #8
 

wilt the stilt

(4,528 posts)
3. sorry auggie
Sun Mar 3, 2013, 10:42 AM
Mar 2013

at that time the All Star game was played for keeps. It was the pride of the leagues. Willie Mays played all 9 innings. It is what made Rose Charley Hustle. Rose was certainly not the most gifted player and he played for keeps and Fosse didn't complain. I remember the World Series of "91 and Dan Gladden came in spikes high. McCarver said Roseboro would have caught his leg and broken it. This is how these guys played. They were not payed alot and players played really hard. Rose the hardest.

Scoscia loved the contact and loved leveling the running player.

 

wilt the stilt

(4,528 posts)
5. it was not deliberate
Sun Mar 3, 2013, 01:51 PM
Mar 2013

Fosse was blocking the plate. When you block the plate you open yourself to getting run over. This has been happening in baseball forever. Read my post. The all star game in the sixties was played hard. May's played all 9 innings in those days. Many players played all 9. Scoscia loved taking on a charging player. If you played baseball you know this is the way it was.

If it was a meaningless game why was Fosse blocking the plate. answer me that.

Auggie

(31,067 posts)
7. Here's Fosse's account, from the San Francisco Chronicle, 1999:
Sun Mar 3, 2013, 03:16 PM
Mar 2013
The play itself does not bother Fosse as much as some of Rose's subsequent comments.

"Probably the thing that was most upsetting is he was quoted as saying (a few years later) that he did it intentionally," Fosse says.

"I would like to think it just happened, it was a clean, aggressive play. The quote was basically, 'If I didn't hit him the way I did, I couldn't talk to my father afterward.'

"When I initially saw the replay, I thought he was going to slide. Then I read where he said he did it on purpose. I don't know."

During that 1980 encounter, Rose told Fosse he did not hit him intentionally. Rose said he planned to slide, saw Fosse coming up the line and changed directions at the last moment.

Even so, Rose's commitment to his signature headfirst slide made the collision almost inevitable. As Fosse puts it, the play only happened because Rose always had it "in his mind" to slide headfirst.

"I positioned myself where the throw was coming," Fosse says. "I knew I was up the line, so I intended to make a sweep tag. The next thing I knew, it happened. I had no warning."

Rose also told reporters that he and Fosse were out drinking together the night before the All-Star Game. Fosse was annoyed that Rose made it sound like it was just the two of them, staying out late.

Actually, it was three couples - Rose and his wife, Fosse and his wife, Indians pitcher Sam McDowell and his wife. Fosse recalls returning to his hotel at a reasonable hour.

"I don't know if Pete had amnesia or what," Fosse says.


STORY LINK: http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Bowled-Over-A-collision-with-Pete-Rose-in-the-2919513.php#page-1

Watch the head-first slide -- totally unnecessary.

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=5766041&topic_id=&c_id=mlb&tcid=vpp_copy_5766041&v=3

Pete Rose is a douchebag.
 

wilt the stilt

(4,528 posts)
8. Fosse account is correct
Sun Mar 3, 2013, 11:34 PM
Mar 2013

Fosse said he knew it was going to be his headfirst slide. He was going got get hit. That was Pete Rose. It is how he played. If you are in the line you get hit. That is how baseball was played and no one was tougher than rose. Did you read where it was "dramatic finish"

The play remains vivid in the mind's eye, frozen in All-Star lore. Jim Hickman lines a single to center . . . Amos Otis comes up throwing . . . Leo Durocher, the third-base coach, scrambles halfway down the line, ushering Pete Rose home.

If it was an "exhibition" would Amos Otis come up throwing and would Leo Durocher run halfway down the line. The All Star game in 1970 was not an exhibition. It was played to win and no one exemplified that more. If it was an exhibition what was Fosse doing blocking the plate.

They were playing for keeps in 1970.
Is Pete Rose a douchebag of course but he was playing for real and so was everyone else.

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