Baseball to outlaw most takeout plays at second base

When baseball outlawed most home plate collisions and I wrote approvingly of the change, a lot of you took me to task for backing what you saw as the "further wussification of sports" because violent, bone-jarring crashes would not happen as often. I think it's time for that dynamic to repeat itself. Baseball is getting ready to change its rules concerning take-out plays at second base, and it's very much in the same spirit. The idea is not to ban a runner from a hard slide into second base when there's a fielder standing there and he might take him out. If the fielder is in the baseline, then the runner has a right to come in hard. No one is disputing that. This change is designed to prevent the collision in which the runner, who was already out, didn't even try to get to the base but directly and specifically targeted the fielder when it was enitrely unnecessary to do so. And it was inspired by this play in last year's National League Division Series between the Dodgers and the Mets, in which an intentional take-out slide from Dodgers' baserunnner Chase Utley seriously injured Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada:

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As the rule stands (or stood last year), Utley did nothing wrong. The take-out slide was completely legal. But baseball's powers-that-be are coming to see that there's no reason it should be legal. Here is the change they're proposing, which would take effect this season:

What the new rules will do is outlaw slides in which the baserunners go beyond the effort to get to second base and instead target the fielders. If the middle infielder is clearly on the left-field side of second base, sources say, the runners will not be able to go over the bag to hit the fielder; if the fielder is out of the baseline, as Tejada was when he was hit by Utley, the baserunner won’t be allowed to hit the fielder. Late slides aimed only to hit the fielder, without regard to getting to second base — and a lot of players perceived Utley’s slide to be late — will be outlawed.

The normal path of a baserunner in that situation is go into a slide a few steps before reaching second base. If your objective is to be safe at second, that's what you do. If Utley had been barrelling in on a close play at second, that's what he would have done. The slide does two things for the runner. First, it prevents him from getting hit in the face with the relay throw. Second, it prevents him from going past the base and subsequently getting tagged out. And if it was a tag play not a force play - which was not the case here - it would also make it harder for the fielder to tag him because he'd have to go down to the feet. Leaving your fleet and flying past the bag does nothing for the runner. Its only objective is to disrupt the fielder. Now, you might say, isn't that part of the game? Gee Dan, isn't one of your all-time favorite players Kirk Gibson? Didn't he do that all the time? Yes it is and yes he is and yes he did. But the hard take-out slides you're talking about here are only valid because they happen in the course of the runner's momentum trying to get to the bag safely. Baseball is not a contact sport. The object of the game is to get around the bases safely. If crashing into a fielder doesn't help you to do that, and the fielder is standing in a position where your normal momentum to the bag would not cause you to hit him, there's no objective related to the object of the game that justifies targeting that fielder. You could argue that it does because it improves the batter's chances of being safe at first, but remember, baseball is not a contact sport. You can't just go around laying hits on opposing players just for the purpose of disrupting their performance. If they're in the way of yours, that's one thing. But once you're out and the fielder is not in your path - as Tejada clearly was not in Utley's path here - it's incompatible with the spirit of the game for Utley to take Tejada out. By the way, I really like the Dodgers and I can't stand the Mets. This has nothing to do with my fandom/partisanship. It just has to do with wanting baseball to be played the way it should be.