The ridiculousness of the “beanball war” mentality
Will Matt Holliday’s hard slide into Marco Scutaro initiate a beanball war? (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Matt Holliday‘s late-sliding takeout of Marco Scutaro, in game two of the NLCS, did look dirty. It was egregiously late, reckless at best, and a flat-out, low-bridge tackle at worst.
But ESPN Baseball Tonight analyst John Kruk’s call for the old-school Haftields-vs.-McCoy’s approach of “take out one of their guys” is disgraceful, and a reminder of aspects of “baseball culture” that need to be removed.
What good does it do to hurt someone who was not the person who executed the dirty takeout slide? This is how the old “beanball wars” started, and it would be sad if a postseason series degenerated into such. If you want to retaliate at Holliday, do so. Otherwise, leave the other players out of it. That advice is just regressive and ridiculous; what are you going to say if a pitcher follows your advice, and we have an Adam Greenberg situation, or worse? Furthermore, do we want our Little Leaguers to continue this type of “tradition” in baseball?
I find such meatheaded suggestions distressing, and so should anyone who’s been injured in retaliation for the actions of a teammate.
Shame on you, Mr. Kruk.
Paul West is the author of First Cause, Book One of the Terranaut Trilogy. Paul is a sports enthusiast, a student of people, a lover of music, a voracious reader and a fervent believer in human possibility. And a HUGE Met fan.
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