By now Chase Utley’s takeout slide that broke Ruben Tejada’s leg has been dissected, analyzed and deconstructed with an intensity commonly associated with the Zapruder film. He’s since been suspended by Major League Baseball for two games for a play that was deemed legal by the umpire on the field and endorsed in the commentary booth by Cal Ripken, a Hall of Fame shortstop who’s been involved in hundreds of similar plays and has forgotten more about baseball than you or I will ever know.
It was the same dangerous but legal play Utley has been on the giving and receiving end of countless times during a 13-year career and one that’s been a part of baseball long before that. There was no intention to injure Tejada and Utley has been honest about his objective: to ensure the double play wasn’t turned and to place the onus on the umpire to call him out for interference. Which he didn’t. Anybody who’s observed Utley since his major league debut knows he wouldn’t intentionally hurt an opponent, just as they know he will do anything within the rules to win.
That should be the end of it. But this is New York, a city that beats its breast over its self-ascribed hardness until it comes out on the short end of it. There’s been no end to the indignation and aggrievement in the three days since. It’s hard to imagine Friday’s play being Monday’s lead story on Good Morning America, which it was, under the headline ‘The Vicious Play That Ended A New York Met’s Season’ if it had happened to, say, a Kansas City Royal. The only thing New York does better than self-importance is sporting victimhood.
When Pete Rose barreled through Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star Game – an exhibition! – it effectively nipped Fosse’s promising career in the bud. It became the central tenet in the Charlie Hustle legend that Major League Baseball traded on for years.
That’s the baseball Utley was bred to play. Asking him to switch it off is akin to booking Richard Pryor for a first-grader’s birthday party and hoping for the best. His entire mystique is built around making heads-up plays made in a quiet, self-effacing style as American as Gary Cooper. The signature moments of his career – scoring from second on an infield chopper against the Braves in 2006, the game-saving defensive play in the 2008 World Series clincher – have embodied guile and hair-trigger instinct.
The mark of a true professional is not being concerned with playing it safe or making friends. It’s unfortunate that Utley’s brand of unassuming hard work has gone out of fashion, but that won’t keep a significant number of baseball fans outside the New York bubble from admiring him.
Because Utley’s appeal won’t be heard on Monday, he’s almost certain to be in uniform for game three. And due to his strong lifetime numbers against Mets starter Matt Harvey, he’ll likely get the start. Expect fireworks. Yet if there’s anyone capable of keeping his cool and performing in that cauldron it’s Utley, who remains the perfect foil to the bluster New Yorkers have elevated to an art form. If he played for the Mets or Yankees he’d be a national hero. How lucky for the rest of us he doesn’t.
