Late Wednesday night, in an attempt to knock the baseball out of the catcher's mitt and be rendered safe on a play at the plate, Florida Marlins' Scott Cousins lowered his shoulder and bowled over San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey. Cousins was successful and safe. Posey will need 4-6 months to recover from a fractured left fibula and severe sprains of the medial, lateral, and syndesmotic ligaments. Ouch.
Posey's devastating injuries have instigated, once again, the debate to implement youth, high school and college-like rules on plays around the plate. Of course, those directly affected, like Posey's agent and Giants fans, would really like a rule change, as if that will heal Posey's leg any quicker. Others also can't overstate -- all of a sudden -- the need for a change.
Posey's injury is disheartening and unfortunate, but I'm with Alex Avila and Brandon Inge: it's a part of the game and an assumed risk of the job as a catcher. What's next -- slapping rubber cleats on these guys, handing them a rubber ball and plastic bats, outlaw the curveball, and call it softball? The rules don't need to change every time somebody is injured. (Although, I guess I wouldn't mind seeing more plays like this around the plate. But then somebody would ultimately break their neck, so the next change would have leaving the feet to avoid running into the catcher as illegal, too.)
Further, with all due respect to Posey, his injury, and Giants nation, if it weren't for the collision at home plate, it would not have afforded Tigers' color commentator Rod Allen the opportunity tonight to discuss the time he ran over a catcher during his playing days in Japan.
As it turned out, thanks to play-by-play man Mario Impemba's prodding, Allen running over a catcher also provided some context to the crazy "Rod Allen charges the mound video" we've all seen a million times. You know, the one that requires us to get sloppy drunk if it's ever (and it never is) presented on a Tigers broadcast.
What happened was Rod Allen forearm shivered a poor, defenseless Japanese catcher on a close play at the plate and then he was plunked later in the game, causing him to charge the mound (and hilariously chase the pitcher all around the field). Rod Allen charging a Japanese pitcher all around the field after getting plunked was enough for me -- I never knew, nor did I really care, it was because he flattened a catcher earlier in the game. I just assumed you don't plunk Rod Allen and get away with it.
Anyway, here's a brief clip of Allen talking about that time he knocked over a catcher as the video of it loops [via friend Brady Green]:
By the way, you should still be drinking.