I came across an interesting tweet from Jerry Hairston Jr. that seems pertinent. Apparently, Jerry was on AM570 to voice his opinion about the Chase Utley slide. Here's Jerry's tweet below:
Fans keep calls comin @AM570LASports I agree W/ SS Cal Ripken/Nomar who played pos. Hard legal play, SS left himself Vulnerable #MLB
— Jerry Hairston, Jr. (@TheRealJHair) October 12, 2015
We can argue all day long about whether the slide was warranted or legal, but that's not the issue I'm wondering about. What I am curious about is the last part of Hairston's tweet. How much responsibility does a middle infielder have when it comes to vulnerability?
If you look back at the replay (video link here) you can clearly see Tejada receive the ball, take a step with his right foot, then attempt an pirouette in the air in order to throw out the runner. In doing this, he turns his back on Chase Utley; thereby putting himself in a vulnerable position. You have to believe that Tejada was mindful of the oncoming runner, so in choosing to make a throw anyway doesn't he contribute, to a certain extent, to the bad situation?
As a hockey fan we see this kind of thing all the time, and oftentimes the severity of a penalty or suspension is assessed based on whether the player himself put themselves in a vulnerable position. This isn't always the case, of course, but I think that in situations like the Utley/Tejada debacle a similar rule must apply.
Photo above via Bleacher Report on twitter.
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I'm sure this will come off as "victim-blaming," but I still don't know what Tejada was doing. It was almost if he didn't even know where Utley was. If he was aware, he'd know there was no time to do that pirouette move (an odd decision anyway) and position himself so he was facing Utley and could react.
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