The fact that Major League Baseball has a seven-day concussion DL, while the NFL won't even hold players out, is embarrassing for football. But the NFL has a leg up on hits against defenseless players, as Buster Posey's injury showed on Wednesday night.
It's a monster fine if you take out a defenseless player and lead with your helmet, which is precisely what Scott Cousins did to Posey in the 12th inning against the Marlins.
And it's precisely why Jeff Berry is going to call Joe Torre and demand/request/"raise the idea" of some changes to plays at the plate.
"You leave players way too vulnerable," said Berry, per Buster Olney of ESPN. "I can tell you Major League Baseball is less than it was before [Posey's injury]. It's stupid. I don't know if this ends up leading to a rule change, but it should. The guy [at the plate] is too exposed."
Of course, the weird thing is that Posey hurt his ankle, thanks to it getting turned in an awkward and very uncomfortable-looking way.
"If you go helmet to helmet in the NFL, it's a $100,000 fine, but in baseball, you have a situation in which runners are [slamming into] fielders," Berry said. "It's brutal. It's borderline shocking. It just stinks for baseball.
"I'm going to call Major League Baseball and put this on the radar. Because it's just wrong."
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Look, people who claim to be "baseball purists" will say that changing the rules and helping catchers be safer are "wussifying the game" and "ruining what makes baseball great."
That's a pile of baloney.
Because you have your cake and eat it to in this instance -- Cousins came flying in and lowered his shoulder into Posey's neck. That's a legal hit.
But it's not a hit that happens every inning or even every game. Teams can deal with a rule change on this front if it means not forcing teams to take away some of the best young offensive catchers and moving them out from behind the plate.
Make it so a player's automatically safe if a catcher is blocking the plate in a situation where he doesn't have a play. Make it so a runner's out if he unnecessarily plows through a catcher at the plate, as Cousins, in my opinion, did last night when he launched himself towards Posey without the Giants' catcher even facing down the third-base line.
There's probably a better, smarter solution and Torre and the guys at the MLB office can work on that. But they just need to make collisions something ... different.
Either that or start letting the second baseman tackle a baserunner trying to leg out a double. Because that makes about as much sense as opening catchers up to potential long-term injury on a meaningless play.
