Look, hatred is an inalienable right. And one of life's pleasures. It's like a fine wine. So don't tell any man or woman who they should or should not hate.
He didn't go for the base for one? Look I hate Utley and what he did but let's be honest, baseball's been letting garbage like this go for generations and now they're getting it up the butt over the hypocrisy of protecting catchers with all their gear while letting tiny middle infielders get killed with no protection. Between what happened with Kang and Tejada now the rule has to change next year and interference has to be enforced when players slide away from the base. And this suspension isn't going to be upheld any more than Brady's was, you can't set your own precedent, especially against the MLB union.
Not when this kind of stuff's been happening for a hundred years and nothing changed IN the rule book and nobody was ever suspended on it. Coghlan certainly wasn't suspended for the Kang thing. You have to change the rule first before setting precedents, not the other way around.
I'm off to the ballpark, but I just wanted to say I hate that Conforto isn't in the starting lineup. Let the best players play.
I I have been watching baseball for over 40 years, this kind of stuff has not been going on. Breaking up a double play, going hard into the base is a totally different situation than what Utley did. The rule book, which someone posted on here, states you cannot deliberately take out the fielder breaking up the DP, if so the base runner and the batter are both out. I have a kid playing college ball who had that very situation called, in the umps opinion did not attempt a legitimate slide into second, and the play was no where near anything what Utley did. He never slid, his ass never hit the ground, nor did he ever attempt to slide. His attempt to look like he was going down didn't even begin until he was at the base, not 3 to 6 feet before the bag that is necessary to carry out a proper slide. The play is illegal, it is in the rule book -- just because during the game they got it wrong, doen't mean you cannot punish the infraction. It happens all the time in the NFL on hits that were not flagged. So it is a rule, and to set a precedent of punishing the behavior, some one has to be the first.
How often does that ever get enforced though? Especially with it being a judgement call, umps don't want to enforce that rule. Besides the Marlon Anderson play in 2007 anyway, which was not even as bad as the Utley play. It doesn't get enforced, you can't just have selective enforcement now and give a precedent-breaking suspension. Baseball knows this suspension isn't going to stand up, it's just something they had to do for PR like most of King Roger's recent suspensions.
I don't think it gets called because it doesn't happen all that often. (Outrageous no attempt to slide type of break ups). Most players that play hard will slide hard, slide a little wide to get in the way or make the SS throw off balance or in the air, that is a part of the game. Most players respect their fellow players and the game Like I said I have been watching for over 40 years, had Mets Season Tickets when I live in NY for about 10 years. So I have seen my fair share of games. The Utley play was about as blatant, bad and IMO dirtiest play into 2nd I have seen. I am sure there have been worse, but what he did is not at all a common occurence.
I just hope to god it is Legares in CF and Cespedes in LF and not the old man. I love Conforto, but I am ok with him not getting the start against the lefty, especially since he did not get a chance to see many in the regular season. This is not the time to see how he fares.
I think with Lagares and Flores, the lineup will be a lot more potent than the one we put up in game 1. I agree with the sleeping giant reference and I truly believe that karma will be a bitch and Wilmer will be the Hero in one of our next 2 wins.
What channel is this game going to be on (the pregame)? TBS currently has Cubs-Cards NVM, the Mets just tweeted out it'll be on TNT even though it doesn't show on the program guide. Hope they show the whole freaking pregame intro/first pitch at least.
It's supposed to be TBS. They used to switch over to TNT if the games ran into each other.... Which they didn't do for the intros in the opener
listed as TBS but they're obviously going to have the first couple innings (at least) on TNT I'd think they stick with Cubs/Cards until its conclusion
I don't like Wright hitting second, he should be 3rd and Murphy 2nd, Cespedes and wright protecting the 1st and 2nd hitters.
