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OT: Chase Utley

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Rico444

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$K THAT GUY.

I can't write any more because I would 100% cross the line and get my post deleted. Hope he faces one of our hard-throwing studs later in this series.
 

8893

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The irony will be if he gets suspended, which is what they're talking about now.

The only person who will benefit is Utley, because it will protect his coward ass from retribution. He's a bench player for them and it does nothing to correct the result for the Mets.
 
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Still furious after that call. At the very LEAST he should have been called out. Instead, he slides away from the bag, breaks Tejada's leg, never touches the bag, and walks off the field. Then he gets rewarded with the bag resulting in the tieing run? BS
 
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I live in Vegas and thus was obviously around a lot of Dodger fans tonight. It was quite sickening to hear how loud they cheered as LA went on that streak when the inning should have already ended. If a Met player pulled something that dirty, I certainly would not feel good at all about the Mets pulling out a win. I'd feel it was at best a tainted W.

But ad I said in the Mets thread, it couldn't have come from a more fitting player, coming from a long stand in Filthadelphia
 

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You could see on the faces of the Dodgers players that they knew it was tainted. Everyone knows it was. The only question is whether anyone does anything about it.
 

Rico444

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You could see on the face of the Dodgers players that they knew it was tainted. Everyone knows it was. The only question is whether anyone does anything about it.

I'm still seething, but at the very least I'm happy knowing that Chase Utley will be known as a dirty player for the rest of his life. Everyone that isn't a Dodgers fan (and even a decent number of Dodgers fans online) are calling BS on his slide, and there have been a number of other dirty slides in his career. Dude is human garbage, and luckily that's how he'll be remembered.
 

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Just saw Murph's post-game reaction. I'd consider bringing him in to pitch to Utley if he has the nuts to bat again in this series.
 

Rico444

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Just saw Murph's post-game reaction. I'd consider bringing him in to pitch to Utley if he has the nuts to bat again in this series.

I'd be OK with leaving Harvey in.
 

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Harvey's not the right guy for the job imo.

And it's probably moot anyway because this is going to blow up so big between now and then that they will probably either issue bench warnings before the game or after the first pitch that's high and tight.

Torre is bothered by it and he knows it was an illegal slide. It will be interesting to see if he does anything about it before the next game.
 
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@Rico444 might be a bit much to call him "human garbage" but I definitely agree with your general point.

I have no rooting interest, but "breaking up the double play" should only be viewed as a positive within the framework of a natural sliding motion.

To me, there were three different things wrong with the play:

1. Not a natural slide. He led with his two knees.

2. He veered off the base path to contact Tejada. I've never understood why baseball allows this.

3. He started the slide WAY late. He was damn near parallel with the bag when he started the slide.

It's hard to fathom how the umpires failed to come to this conclusion. My only guess is maybe it wasn't a reviewable play.
 

Rico444

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@Rico444 might be a bit much to call him "human garbage" but I definitely agree with your general point.

I have no rooting interest, but "breaking up the double play" should only be viewed as a positive within the framework of a natural sliding motion.

To me, there were three different things wrong with the play:

1. Not a natural slide. He led with his two knees.

2. He veered off the base path to contact Tejada. I've never understood why baseball allows this.

3. He started the slide WAY late. He was damn near parallel with the bag when he started the slide.

It's hard to fathom how the umpires failed to come to this conclusion. My only guess is maybe it wasn't a reviewable play.

He's done this kind of thing in the past, multiple times. It's reckless and raises the risk of injury by a lot. This is like undercutting a player when he dunks; classless and completely dirty. Dude is trash, and I'm happy that he'll be remembered as such.
 
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It's not a slide period, an awful job by the umps and MLB. He got hurt because the intent was there, not to slide and be safe/have a chance to be but instead take him out but Utley #1 didn't slide and #2 started too late so to make it a body block turning into a very dirty play.
 

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Not a Met fan but was a middle infielder who played competitively for years when I was younger.

A - If the umpires aren't going to allow the neighborhood play (infielder being near second base for the force out) they then need to protect the infielder making the exchange. They did neither on that play.

B - Even under review, as Utley made no attempt to touch second base, at a minimum it should have been interference on his part even if Tejada missed second base by three feet (not the matter of inches he evidently missed by).

The slide was ridiculous but one sad thing is that I have seen worse. Part of Tejada being as unprepared may have to do with his being primarily a shortstop (who normally are facing the runner/first base when receiving the feed on a double play) not a second baseman (who normally has his back to the runner/first base). Someone (pitcher?, first baseman?) needed to communicate how close Utley was when the slide (if you want to call it that) began. There are many plays (most often throws to second from left field the second baseman has his back to the action) where communication from oer infielders is a necessary part of the play and teams normally have a set protocol on responsibility (most cases first baseman). Nothing bothered me more (while playing second) than when a first baseman wouldn't let me know what was going on behind me when I didn't have the opportunity to see for myself.

I don't see how Utley won't be suspended for this when it was so obvious he made no attempt to touch second. Hopefully MLB will start adding some rules to prevent this in the future.
 
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Total bulls**t what Utley did there and the umpires sleeping on the job. I'm so pissed. And now we lose an important player.
 
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Plenty folks have posted videos online showing utley with at least two other slides into second as egregious as the one last night. One came against the Mets a few years back in 2010 and the other against Padres during second half this year. This is par for the course for this guy slides were just as ugly and went out of his way both times to take the shortstop out too hard at second.
 
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@mauconnfan has it right. The laughable part about all of this is that people keep calling it a "slide." I played a lot of ball growing up - as a catcher. Got taken out multiple times, hard. But I was blocking the plate and I had full gear on (including my mask and helmet, which I would not take off despite the coaches' constant badgering about it). I certainly was not in a prone or vulnerable position.
I have seen zero baseball games this season, and I will see zero more before it's over. Which means I don't have a horse in this race.

That slide last night was an embarrassment to the game of baseball. There is absolutely no need to have that garbage in the game. The archaic view that this is "hardnosed" baseball needs to have died last night. A man in a prone position suffered a broken leg on what amounts to a tackle. It would only have been more egregious if the runner had simply tackled the fielder. Why does this still exist? Why hasn't baseball come out, after such a high profile embarrassment, and immediately indicated that the slide was improper and dangerous and would result in a tightening of the rules?

It's just horrible that such an unnecessary play could change the outcome of the series/playoffs.
 
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It's not just Utley, many worse than his. If Tejada's back not turned he would have avoided it and it would just be "playing the right way" in baseball purists' eyes.

If baseball wants this out like they did with home plate collisions then enforce all of these and even ones with intent and no contact. Napoli had one the other day much worse than Utley's, it was just avoided so no big deal.

Plenty folks have posted videos online showing utley with at least two other slides into second as egregious as the one last night. One came against the Mets a few years back in 2010 and the other against Padres during second half this year. This is par for the course for this guy slides were just as ugly and went out of his way both times to take the shortstop out too hard at second.
 

8893

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Can take the boy out of Philly but can't take the Philly out of the boy.

Karma is a bitch. I just hope the Mets get to deliver it before the umps issue a warning.

I wish appealing the game was a real potential option here. I don't think anyone who understands the game could support that ruling.

It wasn't a slide, period.

I'd say that I hope Utley gets seriously injured, but he's a scrub bench player on their team so it really doesn't even matter. That's what makes it even more of a bush league play.

Gutless coward.

As I wrote last night on the baseball board, this is a Philly thing. This is why we fielded a team of scrubs for our last game there during the last week of the season even though it essentially guaranteed that we would get swept. We couldn't afford for them to take out any more of our guys, especially after they attempted to break Cespedes's hands. They could not possibly win anything this season, so their goal was trying to injure Mets players and take away home field advantage for us in the playoffs.

It's the Philly way. They don't play the game to win with skill; they play dirty and they play to hurt. It's just too bad this scumbag got rewarded by being placed on a contender where he could hurt people in the playoffs, even as a bench player.
 
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I'm not a Mets fan but that was a totally dirty play...didn't realize it last night as I was half asleep, but in the replay from cent field you can see Utley is 3 feet wide of the base and doesn't begin his slide until he is almost even with the bag. That was clearly interference. I think the result of that would be that him and the batter would both be out...that play could turn the series!!
 

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I'm not a Mets fan but that was a totally dirty play...didn't realize it last night as I was half asleep, but in the replay from cent field you can see Utley is 3 feet wide of the base and doesn't begin his slide until he is almost even with the bag. That was clearly interference. I think the result of that would be that him and the batter would both be out...that play could turn the series!!
It absolutely turned the game. If it was called interference, which it was, it's a double play and our odds of winning are more than 75%. If he's simply called out, which he was because he never touched the base, our odds of winning are around 50%. After he was called safe our odds of winning were less than 25%.
 
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How can Utley make contact with the player holding the ball and not be out especially since he never touched 2nd base? I thought the body was an extension of the ball/glove.

If a player bunts to first and the first basemen fields the ball and 'bumps' into the runner in the lane, the runner is ruled out, right?

 

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How can Utley make contact with the player holding the ball and not be out especially since he never touched 2nd base? I thought the body was an extension of the ball/glove.

If a player bunts to first and the first basemen fields the ball and 'bumps' into the runner the runner is ruled out, right?


No. In the case you state the runner needs to be tagged (either by glove with ball in it or the ball in a bare hand). The extension of the ball only pertains to touching a base for a force play.

Again, even if MLB is to take the stance that a hard slide is merely a good baseball play, the umpire then needs to allow the infielder neighborhood for the force at second. They declared Utley safe due to at most a couple of inches. They can't have both ways as we (I still view myself as a middle infielder) would then have no way to protect ourselves shy of firing the ball into the runner (at which point all hell would break loose).
 

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Again, even if MLB is to take the stance that a hard slide is merely a good baseball play, the umpire then needs to allow the infielder neighborhood for the force at second. They declared Utley safe due to at most a couple of inches. They can't have both ways as we (I still view myself as a middle infielder) would then have no way to protect ourselves shy of firing the ball into the runner (at which point all hell would break loose).
That's the rub. Per Torre, the neighborhood call is discretionary and nonreviewable, leaving them with only the touching of the bag to review. But as you point out, it makes it makes no sense because the only way you can see Utley's slide as kosher is if there is a chance at the double play, and they ruled that there was not.
 
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