Last week, baseball fans were understandably devastated that Baby Buster Posey, the cute little backstop that everyone loves, got hurt in this collision at home plate with Marlins outfielder Scott Cousins:
Posey ended up with a broken leg and torn ligaments and is out for the season. From what The Common Man has seen, Cousins definitely initiated the contact, and did not make any effort to avoid Posey, who was not blocking his path to the plate. That said, Cousins’ play was not illegal, was not dirty, and is in keeping with what he had been taught as a runner. As Keith Law pointed out the other day, the play was not dirty, but nor was it necessary. But it is the end result of generations of baseball players and fans who have tolerated violent collisions at the plate. Cousins may not have done what was right, but he did what he understandably thought he was expected to do.
Yesterday, however, Giants GM Brian Sabean disagreed, telling a local radio station,
“If I never hear from Cousins again or he never plays another game in the big leagues, I think we’ll all be happy. He chose to be a hero in my mind, and if that’s his flash of fame, that’s as good as it’s going to get, pal. We’ll have a long memory. Believe me, we’ve talked to (Mike) Matheny about how this game works. You can’t be that out-and-out overly aggressive. I’ll put it as politically as I can state it: There’s no love lost and there shouldn’t be.” (h/t to Hardball Talk)
But Sabean is not only wrong here, he's also a complete hypocrite, who doesn't mind home plate collisions when his guys don't get hurt.
