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| Cousins collides with Posey at home plate. Clean hit? You be the judge. |
San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey is busted for the year.No more enjoying one of the most exciting catchers in the game.
And it all could have, and should have, been avoided.
For those of you who have been preoccupied with Memorial Day Weekend fun and have been oblivious to the hoopla that has surrounded this Posey crisis, the situation took place on May 25, 2011 when, in the 12th inning of a 6-6 ball-game, Florida Marlins centerfielder Scott Cousins tried to score a run from third on a sacrifice fly off the bat of left fielder Emilio Bonifacio.
It was a bang bang play, and Cousins maliciously collided with the Giants' pitch-caller, leaving Posey rolling on the ground in agonizing pain.
The Marlins ended up winning the game 7-6, as Cousins was safe. But the same could not be said about Posey, who fractured a bone in his lower left leg, effectively ending his season.
To make matters worse, Posey, who was batting .284 with 4 home runs and 21 RBIs and was in the midst of a 13-game hitting streak prior to the collision, also suffered torn ligaments on both sides of his ankles.
I’ve watched the video (click "video" to watch the collision) over and over again and I still can’t fully grasp what in the world was going through Cousins’ head before his Lawrence Taylor-esque tackle on Posey. Is anyone else drawing comparisons between Cousin's hit on Posey and LT's infamous hit on Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theisman that fractured Theisman's leg and ended his career? Maybe I'm being a bit dramatic here given the hits took place in two different sports, but Cousins did a pretty good impersonation of LT in my opinion.
The worst part about Posey's season ending injury is that the entire disaster could have easily been avoided.
While it's important to note that his take out was completely legal, Cousins decision to obliterate Posey was one of the most classless acts I've ever seen take place in sports.
First off, I have no clue as to why in the world Cousins was even tagging up on Bonifacio's fly ball. The ball hit by Banafacio probably will go down as one of the shortest sacrifice flies in MLB history. Thirty feet towards home plate, and that ball is an infield fly.
Simply put, Cousins had about as much business tagging up in that situation as Chick-fil-A has on Sundays. And just for the record, Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays.
But the bigger issue here is how one man, Scott Cousins, did not have a brain — or heart— during the four-second-time span it took him to run 85 feet and tumble 5 feet from third base to home.
Former MLB catcher Mike Matheny put it best when he recently said, "You know what, it wasn't a dirty play, he didn't come high spikes, he didn't come high elbow. But it wasn't a necessary play. He was hunting. Buster gave him an option and he didn't take it." It's one thing if a base runner collides with a catcher when he is blocking the plate or if he is sitting in front of home plate, well-prepared and ready to absorb a body to body explosion.
But Posey was not blocking the plate at all, nor was he in any way expecting a collision to occur.
Posey left half of the plate open for Cousins to slide into, but instead, Cousins chose to deck Posey unnecessarily.
Posey also was just turning his head around to apply a tag on Cousins when he was given a "blindside" hit surprise by Cousins (a la Lawrence Taylor once again). Posey was completely defenseless in that situation.
There was nothing Posey could have done to prevent the collision, or at least protect himself from being seriously injured.
There was everything Cousins could have done, like slide or not even tag up to run home in the first place.
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Now, I know much of the media is suggesting possible rule changes to prevent base runners from taking out catchers, and I think there is one is one logical way this issue can be fixed: The MLB should prohibit players from colliding with catchers if they are in a defenseless position, or in other words, are not prepared to take a hit from an incoming freight train.
If a player does collide with a catcher in this manner, he should be immediately called out and, depending on the severity of the hit, be ejected from the game.
There is no reason why players should be getting hurt from preventable hits such as Cousins'. MLB players have to worry enough about getting hurt in a plethora of other ways such as overusing their arms or getting hit by 90+ mile per hour fastballs.
In baseball and every other sport, there are so many unpreventable injuries players can get that are just part of playing the game. Why not minimize one way a player can get injured in baseball, especially if it's a scenario that can easily be prevented?
The bottom line is that while he did nothing wrong according to the rules of baseball, Cousins should not have even had the opportunity to end the season of one of baseball's best players.
But until the MLB does something about the current state of base runners trying to take out defenseless catchers, Buster Posey may very well not be the only catcher who is busted by a heartless collision this season.
