Utley's Appeal/Suspension-Update......

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Mattingly23NY

Turning Fastballs Into Souveneir's ~
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"Sources" in MLB, "are saying".........No, MLB or Joe Torre........? "Sources close to MLB say", said, haven't said, WHEN WILL THIS BE ADDRESSED??? - WTF, break out the "new soft shoe" or fkn tap dance, say Something Official-MLB, Joe.......don't care if its the gopher boy. It's easier to get a dog to speak, on record........

Last news, MLBPA, and Utley's Agent, and/or MLB, will not hear Chases appeal today, probably not tomorrow, and no one knows when, but those inside MLB......

Legally, MLB has 14 days to hear an appeal........

I still find it ironic, how "aggressive" plays, so often happen in the Post Season. It's not that there are more "agressive" plays during the season, rather- non get the attention of the media, and MLB, fans also, in a frenzy because IT IS the Post Season, a Season unto itself, and All eyes are watching..........

this article, hits alot on the head, much what some won't want to hear, tho' its from a Donnie BB, LA Times perspective, "In a NY State of Mind".......

L.A. Times Sports: "MLB overreacts with 2 Game Suspension" (good interview with Donnie BB.......


A little Billy Joel please, I’m in a New York state of mind. And apparently so are you and everyone else in the world of baseball.

It is unavoidable at the moment, New York being center of the media world – or is that all civilization? – and where the Dodgers and Mets will resume their National League Division Series Monday, the Mets understandably feeling aggrieved after losing their shortstop in Game 2 on Chase Utley’s now infamous slide.

And as New York goes, so often does the rest of the country. That’s not lost on Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly, who played his entire 14-year career in New York with the Yankees. Indeed, to many in Los Angeles even after Mattingly has spent the past eight years with the Dodgers, the last five as their manager, he remains a New Yorker.

So while much of the baseball world throws its arms up all aghast at the play, Mattingly had an interesting perspective Sunday. And that was before Major League Baseball’s stunning two-game suspension of Utley.

“If it would have been their guy, they would be saying, `David Wright, hey, he's a gamer. He went after him. That's the way you gotta play,’ ” Mattingly said. “But it's our guy. It's different.


“I know how … the New York media gets a little bit going and it gets dramatic. But for me you can't have it both ways. If David would have done it, it wouldn't have been any problem here in New York.”

He is absolutely correct, of course. They’d have a statue erected to Wright outside Citi Field by the start of Game 3 if the situation were reversed.

Only now somewhat shockingly, at least to those in Los Angeles, MLB’s Chief Baseball Officer Joe Torre has decided the play was worthy of a two-game suspension. He termed it an illegal slide and called it a rolling block.


If this had happened during the regular season, there’s no way Utley gets a suspension. And you have to wonder if it hadn’t happened against a player from New York, if it would have happened.

Utley can appeal, and will appeal, but this is over-the-top enforcement because the whole baseball world is watching. It smells like politically correct baseball. You just can’t play by one set of rules in the regular season and another in the postseason.

Let’s face it, it was a freak play. Everyone in the stadium knew Utley was going to come hard to break up the double play. Every player on the field would have.

Yes, he absolutely slid late. But no, he wasn’t out of the base path. Utley could have slapped the bag as he went by, but his focus was on disrupting the double play.

Shortstop Ruben Tejada spun backwards after receiving a late feed from second baseman Daniel Murphy that was behind him. As Utley charged in to slide, Tejada had his back to him. He was completely exposed and totally vulnerable.

So when Utley hit him, Tejada’s feet flew out from under him he went airborne. It looked bad and made the play appear worse than it actually was.

“I look at it as a baseball play,” Mattingly said before the suspension was announced. “It was a hard, aggressive, legal slide to me.

“Our organization is proud of the way Chase plays. We love the way he plays. He's got a reputation for playing the game right, playing it hard, and we're behind him 100 percent.”

Mattingly’s support for Utley seemed stronger Sunday than immediately after Saturday’s game. But by then, most of the world had turned against Utley. And, of course, Tejada was left with a broken leg and lost for the rest of the series. That, the image of Tejada flying through the air and the New York media all labeling it a dirty play, had conspired against Utley and the Dodgers.

“Let's say he didn't get hurt,” Mattingly said. “There would be rumblings, but it goes away. Guys talk and chat, but if nobody got hurt, it wouldn't even be talked about hardly today. It would have just been a hard slide, and there would have been controversy back and forth if it was hard. But since someone got hurt, now it's a story.”

It was a big story, though, and MLB just made it a bigger one. All very unnecessarily.





 

I will always think, this is girl-scoutish compared to McRae's take out of Randolph 77 ALCS, or Rose/Harrelson 1973 NLCS..........


LA Times: "How MLB's Suspension Un-Fair to Players and Umpires"


If timing truly is everything in life, then Major League Baseball seriously needs to work on its time management.

Its decision to suspend Chase Utley for two games for his late slide into Ruben Tejada in Game 2 sends a troubling and confusing message to players and umpires in the postseason.


It was essentially a precedent, players having thrown themselves into infielders to break up double plays since horsehide was first stitched around a ball of yarn. And almost without exception, there was no ensuing suspension.

That was until Game 2 of the Dodgers-Mets National League Division Series. Then Tejada got turned awkwardly around and had his feet knocked out from under him by Utley’s late, chop-block style (not a tackle) slide that sadly left Tejada with a broken fibula.


Now if MLB wants to issue a new rule to protect infielders, no problem. If MLB wants to re-interpret the existing rules giving umpires more pointed direction as to how they’re to be enforced, no problem.

But you don’t suddenly change the game in the middle of the playoffs when, now more than ever, players are supposed to be playing hard, going all out to win.

After the Utley suspension, exactly what is a player to think as he runs to second needing to break up a double play attempt? How much contact is allowed? How far off the base can he drift while still able to reach the bag?

And what is an umpire to think? He’s been calling this play one way his entire career and now in the middle of October he’s supposed to adjust on the fly to a more stringent rule interpretation?

It’s not like Utley just started sliding like this. He’s been doing it his entire career. Last month against the Padres, he slide way wide of the second base bag to take out infielder Jedd Gyorko.

It was not his first take out slide of Tejada, either. He did a similar take out slide against him in 2010 while with the Phillies.








Neither was is the first time Utley did a takeout slide in the postseason. Here he is while with the Phillies in 2010 taking out the Cardinals’ Ryan Theriot.




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Pirates second baseman Jung-Ho Kang had his season ended this year on a takeout slide.






And Kang can’t complain too much, since he slides the same way.


There is also the Cardinals’ 6-4, 250-pound Matt Holiday taking out Giants infielder Marco Scutaro behind the bag in the 2012 Playoffs.

On and on it goes. The internet is littered with examples. Because it happens all the time.

Say that something more needs to be done, and I won’t argue. Just don’t try and pull it off midstream. It’s not fair to any one and reeks of absurd timing.
 
2012 NLCS take out slide


4/17/015, B. Lawrie takes out Escobar, who required major knee surgery after this take out.
 

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