There’s no place in baseball for Chase Utley’s takeout slide

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Stating “that’s the way that it’s always been” has never been good reason to support anything. It doesn’t hold up in business, politics or sports, and plenty of examples in just American history back this up. Hard, takeout slides have had their place in baseball history since the sport’s beginnings, from Ty Cobb’s hard slides in the early 20th century to Saturday, when Chase Utley of the Dodgers “slid” into Ruben Tejada of the New York Mets. Utley waited as late as humanly possible before sliding into Tejada, who flew up into the air and broke his leg as a result.

If Utley’s intention was to bring football back to Los Angeles early, he certainly succeeded. Beyond the inanity of the umpiring crew’s decision to put Utley on second base despite having not touched second base at any point in time during the play, the play, flat out, has no place in baseball today. Whether or not there is “intent” to injure someone overlooks the basic fact that, regardless of Utley’s proximity to the base, there’s clear intent to ram into someone, especially when one considers Utley’s back leg landed past second base after he initiated the slide.

But hey, what happens after someone’s intentionally slams into another person’s legs doesn’t factor into whether or not the play was dirty, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The idea that Utley had no choice but to ram into Tejada is inane, given that there’s 90 feet separating first and second base and, after all, these are world class athletes that can hit 99-mph fastballs. Saying that Utley couldn’t adjust in a fraction of a second to avoid sliding into Tejada flat out makes no sense. How a sport that has a rule preventing contact between baserunners and catchers at home plate still allows this kind of play to remain in baseball is beyond belief.