The second base slide controversy

Posted on October 20, 2015

Walt Weiss of the Oakland Athletics injures his knee as he tries to turn a double play at second base as Boston Red Sox base runner Ellis Burks slides into him during Game 2 of the American League Championship Series on October 7, 1990 at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

 

People are still talking about the controversial slide Los Angeles Dodgers base runner Chase Utley made in the first round of the playoffs last week when he slid hard into New York Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada to break up a double play in the bottom of the 7th inning in Game 2 of the NLDS at Dodger Stadium. Utley slid late on the play, after he passed second base, and upended Tejada who was in a vulnerable position while he was trying to turn two. By now everyone has seen video of the play in which Utley’s slide broke Tejada’s leg, broke up the double play, allowed the tying run to score from third, and sparked the Dodgers come-from-behind victory. Social media immediately went crazy. People were calling for Utley’s head. Yes, the slide was late. Was it dirty? Depends if you are a Mets or Dodgers fan. If I am a teammate or if I bleed Dodger Blue that run from third must score. That double play must be broken up, and I love Utley for his hard-nosed play. If I have a Mr. Met bobble head on my fireplace mantle I want Utley’s ass on a platter, and I probably already hate him from his days as a Philadelphia Phillie.

What was I thinking watching the game on my television? I thought it was great theater and all I wanted to see were some great pictures! Of course I am always thinking pictures. That was some kick-ass second base action I thought to myself. We used to get good stuff like that many times back in the 1980’s when I started shooting. The game was different back then. Players didn’t make as much money and they seemed to go hard into the bag at second to break up the double play more often. I knew there were some great photographers shooting this game down at Dodgers Stadium. I couldn’t wait to see what everyone got. Based on the television replay I wanted to see the play from third base. I like seeing faces and I thought this might be the best look of Tejada spread out horizontally in the air with the ball in his hand. One of the best images I saw of the play was shot by the fabulous Robert Gauthier of the Los Angeles Times. You can see his picture here. Keith Birmingham from the Pasadena Star-News made a nice frame from high first that Sports Illustrated ran as a Leading Off in the magazine.

Did Utley deserve to be suspended for his slide? No. Was all of this talk about hard slides into second base a good excuse for me to dig into my vast archive of MLB pictures dating back to 1987? You bet!

Oakland A’s shortstop Walt Weiss had his 1990 season cut short on Sunday night, October 7, 1990 in the bottom of the 8th inning of Game 2 of the American League Championship Series between his club and the Boston Red Sox. I was shooting the game as a 25-year-old staff photographer for The National Sports Daily. This was my first trip to Fenway and I was out of my mind with excitement. Weiss, the 1988 American League Rookie of the Year, was trying to turn a double play at second base in a tight game with his squad clinging to a 2-1 lead. Red Sox base runner Ellis Burks slid hard into Weiss at second base, a clean slide, and took out Weiss, breaking up the play. Weiss flew into the air and lost the ball. He seemed to hang in the air in slow motion as I shot pictures from the third base side with a 600mm lens and a film camera cranking away at five frames-per-second shooting Ektapress 1600 asa color negative film producing golf ball-sized grain. I was shooting at 1/500th of the second wide open at 4.0 and had one sharp frame when Weiss was hanging in the air at the peak of his jump. Everything else had too much motion blur. Luckily, one frame is all I needed (see top). When the play ended Weiss was on the ground in pain. He needed to be helped off the field. He had torn up a knee. His season was over. This was old school, hard nosed baseball. It was not controversial. It was the way the game was played.

“The doctors tested my [left] knee today and found a sprained medial collateral ligament. They pretty much said playing any more this year is doubtful, but we’ll wait for a week or so and reassess. Right now it hurts a lot more than when I had the same injury in the other knee [last year], ” Weiss told reporters the next day in Oakland. Weiss then added, “I usually don’t stay on the ground unless I’m really hurt. I had a tough time just standing up. The tough part of the play was I was on the run while the ball is on the way to me. My biggest concern was catching it cleanly. Just as I was about to go up, Burks slid into me. He got there pretty quick. My left leg wasn’t off the ground yet. It was planted. A fraction of a second later and I’d have been in the air. But I wasn’t, and when he hit me, the knee bent in.”

Went I started shoot big league baseball in 1987 there were so many plays at second base that we weren’t allowed to use the pictures by our editors. They became a cliche they happened so much. Guys went in hard. Now we rarely get plays at second that result in good pictures as the game has changed so much since I started shooting nearly 30 years ago. This is one of the reasons why the Utley slide was such a big deal. If it would have happened in 1987 it would not have been as big of a deal. We still get guys going hard into the bag trying to break things up, it just doesn’t happen as often as it once did

Let’s go back in time and take a look at some plays at second base that I have shot over the years.

The bigger the game the harder guys play, so I am hoping I get some great action around the bag next week when I start shooting my 16th straight World Series on assignment for Major League Baseball. You will see pictures posted here on this blog after each and every game, so check back to see what happens!