Baseball’s slide rule, enacted in 2016 after a pair of hard slides injured Jung Ho Kang of the Pirates and Ruben Tejada of the Mets during the end of the 2015 season, has been a source of controversy among the players and coaches throughout the game. Many feel that the slide rule is just another way to baby players and is an overreaction to a pair of freak incidents.

Two such people are Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon and starting pitcher Jon Lester, who saw their team have a run taken off the board during Saturday’s 5-3 loss against the St. Louis Cardinals because of the slide rule.

Here are Maddon’s quotes about Ian Happ’s slide into second base in the fifth inning.

“I have no idea why these rules are part of our game,” a steamed Maddon said after the loss. “There was an out created there. That was just one out they did not have to earn. I totally, absolutely disagree with that. It has nothing to do with safety and protecting the middle infielder.”

[…]

“When you’re sliding on dirt and you have momentum, you just keep going,” Maddon said. “There was no malicious intent there whatsoever. The rule does not belong in the game.

“There was nothing egregiously dangerous on the part of our runner. Don’t give me hyperbole and office-created rules because I’m not into those things, as you guys well know.”

And here’s a video of the slide, where Happ slides through second base and doesn’t keep himself on the bag.

By the wording of the rule, that’s a correct call. It was a late slide and he didn’t keep his hand on the bag. But Maddon isn’t arguing that the rule was implemented incorrectly – he was arguing that it’s a dumb rule.

This isn’t a new sentiment from Maddon, either. Here’s what he had to say when Chris Coghlan broke Jung Ho Kang’s leg in September of 2015.

Added Cubs manager Joe Maddon: “That’s a good baseball play — it’s been going on for the last 100 years. There was no intent by anybody.”

Cubs starter Jon Lester also went off on the slide rule after the game, calling the players “a bunch of pansies” and repeating Maddon’s talking point about the last century.

“Baseball has been played for over 100 years the exact same way, and now we’re trying to change everything and make it soft,” Lester said. “That’s baseball, man. We’re out there playing with a bunch of pansies right now. I’m over this damn slide rule and replaying if it’s too far and all this other B.S. We’re grown men out there.”

One wonders how Lester and Maddon would feel if it was Addison Russell who had his leg broken by a hard slide two years ago instead of either Kang or Tejada.

While I do think the slide rule is somewhat of a mess and that umpires should have some latitude on determining whether or not the rule was violated, appealing to tradition and history like Maddon and Lester did isn’t the best argument to make. 100 years ago, only white dudes played the game, no one wore helmets, every game was played during the day, there were only 16 teams in the league, and players needed second jobs during the offseason because they weren’t millionaires.

Times change, and the game needs to keep evolving. The slide rule clearly isn’t perfect, but it’s part of the evolution of baseball, and is here to stay – though will probably be tweaked as time goes on and incidents like this keep happening.

There’s not an easy fix, just like with the plethora of issues regarding the plate blocking rule, but baseball’s heart is in the right place.

[ESPN]

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.