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Well, that was a terrible ending to a game. I'm biased, but I didn't see all that much wrong with the slide. I'm really not a fan of takeout slides. Running over the second baseman, when he is off balance and not ready has nothing to do with baseball.
Yeah, in the old days, players tried to hurt the middle infielder. I mean Ty Cobb sharpened his spikes and hoped to cut up the fielder trying to make the turn at second. Thankfully the game has grown up since then.
For me, Bautista's slide wasn't an attempt to hurt anyone, he barely touched the fielder. He sort of over slid the bag at second but that was more in an effort to watch the play at first. It is too bad that an iffy call ended the game.
We all know that tomorrow or the next day we are going to see the same sort of slide and it will be ruled the other way. There is too much leeway in the rule. Each time it will be interpreted differently.
The Jays, not surprisingly, weren't thrilled with the call. Unfortunately, Gibby, among his comments, said something really stupid:
Gibbons tells reporters: "Maybe we'll come out and wear dresses tomorrow. Maybe that's what everybody's looking for."
— Arash Madani (@ArashMadani) April 6, 2016
Gibby, sorry, we've got to stop equating anything we don't like in the sport with being feminine. It might surprise you, but women do play sports. They work just as hard as men. It is insulting to suggest otherwise.
I know that, for people my age, that tends to be the go to response (well, when the go to response isn't homophobic, I guess we should be thankful he didn't say something worse). But it's time to grow up. It's time to find other ways to express ourselves. Act like you have a daughter and you don't want to insult her by saying she's not as tough as your son.
This says it better than I did:
Calling a boy a girl implies that it's bad to be a girl. That's it. There's no nuance here. You could have rocks for brains and still get it
— Brandon Warne (@Brandon_Warne) April 6, 2016
Gibby, this doesn't help:
Gibby did not apologize for his dresses comment, said he meant no malicious intent & was trying to inject some humour into a tense moment.
— Brendan Kennedy (@BKennedyStar) April 6, 2016
It costs nothing to say 'I'm sorry. I said something silly and I shouldn't have. I'll learn from this.' There isn't much wrong with saying something stupid, there is wrong in not learning from it.
Of course, Zaun saying that, because of this rule change, he 'doesn't recognize the game anymore' is equally stupid. If you don't recognize the game, maybe you shouldn't be commenting on it.
Matt already wrote on Aaron Sanchez's great start. I don't have much to add, other than we often we forget that players, when they get to the majors, aren't finished products. Sometimes we think they are locked into being the player we see in their first start. One of my favorite things about watching baseball is getting to watch young players grow and improve and become veterans, over time.
We are going to be hearing about TroyTulowitzki's glove all season, but it is almost unforgivable to have a ball go right through your glove:
I'll admit I have the same glove that I bought for myself when I was in high school, but I don't use it quite as much as Tulo uses his. In the majors your glove shouldn't fail.
Lost in all that other stuff was the end of Brett Cecil's streak without an earned run. It was a bad time for it to end, but I guess we can allow him to give up a run or two every few months.