The only surprise is that it took Matheny this long to come around. Maybe part of it is managing his own marquee player in Yadier Molina but better late than never. The sport has to do something to protect its marquee players from unnecessary injury. They will be better off having Molina and Buster Posey and Joe Mauer and others on the field and in the batters box than not.
The rigors of catching already take a toll in terms of number of games played per season and total seasons played per career for catchers. Time to give them a little bit of a break. The lower levels of sports have these type of rules in place to protect, so there should be little or no problem gaining acceptance.
from Yahoo Sports:
Cardinals manager Mike Matheny changes stance on home-plate collisions, wants them banned | Big League Stew - Yahoo! Sports:
From the MLB.com story:
"... [T]his game will get to the point where there will no longer be a collision at the plate. And I am 100 percent in support of that."
Matheny framed it primarily as a risk-reward matter, explaining that any increase in the entertainment value from collisions is outweighed by safety concerns.
"I'd just love to hear the rebuttal," Matheny said, "because what I've personally witnessed was enough for me to change my mind. It actually took me a little longer 'till I got to the realization of the risk we're putting these guys in -- and the runner, too. The runner is stuck in a spot sometimes where if he doesn't do it, he feels like he's let his team down. Take it out of their hands. This isn't a collision sport. There's enough of a physical grind with guys being out there for 162 games. We've got the physical aspect of this game. It doesn't need to include that one spot."
'via Blog this'
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