‘Chase Utley Rule’ critics in MLB can no longer slide behind ‘good baseball’ defence

Purists may bemoan it, players may not completely understand it, but it is time that the only contact in baseball remain between a bat and a ball. Not between players, writes Gregg Patton.

Chase Utley, right, of the Los Angeles Dodgers is tagged out at the plate by Derek Norris of the San Diego Padres during the third inning on opening day at PETCO Park on April 4, 2016 in San Diego, CaShow more

Baseball’s new “Chase Utley Rule”, implemented to make runners slide into bases, not into defenceless fielders, has at least one harsh critic.

Not surprisingly, that would be the first manager whose team lost a game just three days into the season because the rule was correctly applied.

Fortunately, the angry, whining diatribe by the Toronto Blue Jays’ John Gibbons will fall on deaf ears.

Eventually, he might advance from the stone-aged thinking that ruled baseball for too long.

That was the thinking that accepted the crazy notion that base runners, who were already out, could leave the baseline and crash into second basemen and shortstops who were trying to turn a double play. In Gibbons’s case, his Toronto team apparently had taken a one-run lead against the Tampa Bay Rays with one out and the bases loaded in the top of the ninth inning.

Two runs seemingly had scored when the Jays’ Jose Bautista broke up a double play at second base, causing a wild throw by Rays second baseman Logan Forsythe.

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However, the replay camera caught Bautista slapping Forsythe’s leg and turning him slightly, as Bautista slid by.

That was the first no-no.

Bautista also slid past the base for no-no No 2.

The new rule requires the runner to slide directly into the base and remain in contact.

Bautista had already been called out, but batter Edwin Encarnacion also was ruled out at first on the interference, thus disallowing the two runs and ending the game with Tampa Bay ahead.

Ironically, Bautista barely made contact with Forsythe, but he clearly broke the rule.

Twice.

Gibbons was livid.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “You go after somebody, you hurt somebody, I get that.

“But that’s good baseball.

“That has been baseball forever.”

No, it was a shame that baseball somehow had evolved into a contact sport, allowing runners to forget about the base and target fielders, sometimes causing mayhem.

The new rule was nicknamed for Utley, the Dodgers’ veteran, who broke the leg of New York Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada in the play-offs last season.

Utley had launched himself over second base to “slide” into Tejada by jumping into the shortstop’s legs.

As brutal as it was, it was deemed legal, since Utley could claim he was close enough to second base to justify his play.

Tejada’s injury happened less than a month after a similar takeout slide by the Chicago Cubs’ Chris Coghlan had left Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Jung Ho Kang with a fractured leg and knee damage.

Neither Tejada nor Kang have returned to action, more than seven months after they were victimised by what Gibbons called “good baseball”.

Fortunately, common sense unearthed itself after Utley’s high-profile play in the post-season in a game involving teams from the two biggest television markets, and too many people could not ignore the obvious anymore.

Certainly it may take some players time to adjust.

The Atlanta Braves grumbled the first time the new rule was applied on Opening Day.

The Braves’ Nick Markakis was called for interference when he slid directly into Washington Nationals second baseman Daniel Murphy while reaching for the base with his hand, formerly a common technique.

Even Utley does no get it, yet.

In the Dodgers first game, he ignored a rule adopted two years ago to protect catchers.

Utley left the baseline to slide into the San Diego Padres’ Derek Norris.

Hopefully, such plays will fade away. Bautista was not happy after his ill-advised slide, but at least a light flickered in his old-school brain. In recounting the play, he told reporters, “I could have done much worse and I chose not to.”

Exactly the point, as Forsythe’s healthy legs can attest.

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