Change, Anyone?

In a game on May 25, San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey was run over in a home plate collision with Florida Marlins centerfielder Scott Cousins. It happened in the 12th inning of a game in which the Marlins had blown a four-run lead in the ninth inning but Cousins' run was the go ahead and game winning run. Unfortunately, the collision was so violent that Posey's fibula was broken and several ankle tendons strained leading to the prognosis that Posey is likely to miss the rest of the season. Every reaction I've heard, professionals or not, is that the play was clean. And as much as I hate to defend a Marlins player, I agree 100%. What surprised me was the sudden outcry for banning or somehow regulating collisions at home plate.

I don't mean to sound like an old-time purist, though maybe I am, but for as long as baseball has been played there have been home plate collisions. The basic rule is "if you're blocking home plate prepare for a collision." There doesn't need to be any rules or mandates about avoiding contact on close plays at the plate. It's really quite simple: 1) if you are the runner and don't want to have a collision, pull up or slide. 2) if you are the catcher and don't want to have a collision, don't block home plate. Catch the ball in front of home plate and try to swipe tag or even jump into the baseline once the ball -- and your self -- is secure. It's a question of machismo versus common sense. Thrown baseballs travel faster than baseballs being carried. So catchers try to maximize air time by catching a thrown ball as late as possible by straddling home plate. This may put a catcher in harm's way, but it's something a catcher signs up for as far back as Little League.

My questions are: What if it were not a star player but a reserve player on a last-place team? Would there still be the same outcry? Why now? Pete Rose infamously destroyed Ray Fosse in a home plate collision while scoring the winning run in the 1970 All-Star game. That's right, a separated shoulder for blocking the plate in an exhibition game. No rules were changed then. (Urban legend has it that the collision ruined Fosse's career but I found this interesting, Why Pete Rose Didn't Ruin Ray Fosse's Career. There's also a lot more post collision Fosse injury reports on Wikipedia... but I have to draw the line somewhere, don't I?)  So why try to change the rule now?

Just Joe

So Tired of the Left

Every time I see it, it's "left" this and "left" that. Left, left, left, left, left!

I can't help but wonder "wouldn't NASCAR be a little more interesting if they had just a few races that went right each year?" In case there are any NASCAR fans reading this, I'm aware of the road courses that require both left and right turns but I'm questioning the oval races. I'm not a NASCAR fan in the least but if they had one race that was clockwise, I'd probably actually watch some of it just because it's different -- like inter-league play in Major League Baseball. Who knows, maybe in the few laps that I would watch I'd become hooked. It doesn't seem likely for me personally but they have to get their foot in the door somehow.

With the Indy 500 being run tomorrow (yes, I know that isn't NASCAR) it got me wondering why auto racing, and nearly all racing in the United States, is run counterclockwise. So I scoured the Internet for at least 15 minutes to find an answer.  Don't worry, it wasn't more than 20 minutes. Here are the more believable answers I found:

Why are NASCAR races run counterclockwise in the first place? Because at its inception NASCAR adopted horse racing's precedent.

OK, easy enough but I dug a wee bit deeper.

Why were horse races run counterclockwise? They weren't. Well, not outside of the U.S. Counterclockwise racing was introduced by American Revolution supporter William Whitley in 1780. The British had established clockwise horse racing so, of course, to be contrary Whitley began running horse races counterclockwise. Sounds plausible to me (see "Freedom Fries" circa 2002). The idea caught on and eventually stuck for the horses and was naturally held over for auto racing.

And the original question: Why not try the right?  The best answer I could find deals with driver safety. In American cars the driver side is on the left. So if they were to drive the track clockwise, the driver would be on the side of the car nearer the wall which leaves less car to crumple during an accident. Of course, that just means that currently they are driving with other cars on their left side instead of the wall! Which is more dangerous? I'm afraid that would take more than five minutes of Internet searching to find out so consider that question as reader homework. Although, I may spend five minutes composing an e-mail to see if I can get NASCAR's official response to racing clockwise. I'll be sure to update all of you who will be waiting with bated breath.

Just Joe


NEXT WEEK: Art Imitating Life?