My cousin Phil pointed out something very interesting to me today.
In the beginning of baseball season there was an outcry for a new rule in home plate collisions after the season ending injury to San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey. "Baseball needs to change the rules!" "Baseball needs to protect their catchers!"
My cousin and I were two of a lot of others that spoke against these claims. Honestly, did people really forget this game? Home plate collisions are part of it. They used to happen constantly. There's even a countdown on MLB Network for the most notable collisions.
One of the things I said during this outcry was that if this wasn't Buster Posey, if this was any other catcher that wasn't a fan favorite rookie-of-the-year, no one...I mean NO ONE...would have said anything.
Fast forward...
This September the Yankees played a game against the Baltimore Orioles where back-up catcher Francisco Cervelli was involved in a home plate collision. He suffered his fourth concussion and is out for the remainder of the season.
Why didn't anyone put up an outcry over this? It's plain and simple: outside of the Bronx, Cervelli is a nobody. He isn't a World Series champion rookie-of-the-year. He isn't a player who was predicted to be a future superstar. He's just the back-up catcher for the New York Yankees. That's it.
To all of the Buster Olney's out there: stop making a big stink over nothing. It's not worth it. Maybe if you actually paid any attention to the game of baseball, you would know that this is a thing that happens in the game once in a while. Not to mention that the hit to Posey was a perfectly clean hit. This is a perfect example of fans, media, etc jumping the gun before really thinking about what just happened.
I quote my cousin Phil as he said to me this morning: "Funny how injuries to superstars lead to knee-jerk reactions."
