BASEBALL TO BAN 'HOME PLATE COLLISIONS"

END OFF 'HOME PLATE COLLISIONS'

Major League Baseball will eliminate home plate collisions, as soon as next season but no later than by 2015.

New York Mets manager Sandy Alderson, chairman of the rules committee, made the announcement yesterday.

The major factor in the decision was player safety and concerns over concussions. "Ultimately what we want to do is change the culture of acceptance that these plays are ordinary and routine and an accepted part of the game". Alderson said. "The costs associated in terms of health and injury just no longer warrant the status quo."

Alderson announced the exact wording of the rule change will be ready for approval by the owners at their January 16th meeting in Paradise Valley,Arizona. "The exact language and how exactly the rule will be enforced is subject to final determination. We're going to do fairly extensive review of the types of plays that occur at home plate to determine which we're going to find acceptable and which are going to be prohibited. If the players' association were to disapprove, then the implementation of the rule would be suspended for one year, but could be implemented unilaterally after that time."

Approval of that MLBPA is required for the rule change to take effect next year.

The union did not comment yesterday, pending a review of the proposed changes. Earlier this month, union head Tony Clark said, "Suffice it to say, the players have some thoughts of their own regarding home-plate collisions."

The move to ban home plate collisions began in May 2011 when all-star catcher Buster Posey broke his leg in a collision at home with Scott Cousins of the Florida Marlins.

"This is, I think, in response to a few issues that have arisen", Alderson said. "One is just the general occurrence of injuries from these incidents at home plate that affect players, both runners and catchers. And also kind of the general concern about concussions that exists not only in baseball but throughout professional sports and amateur sports today. It's an emerging issue, and one that we in baseball have to address, as well as other sports."

Alderson added, "I think there will be two levels of enforcement of this rule. One will be with respect to whether the runner is declared safe or out based on conduct. So, for example, intentionally running over the catcher might result in an out call. So I think the enforcement will be on the field as well as subsequent consequences in the form of fines and suspensions and the like."

The drafting of the rule could be a complicated procedure.

"Does it include at every base or just home plate ? What's considered blocking the plate and how do you define it", said Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter.

The NCAA instituted a rule for last season that said, 'Contact above the waist that was initiated by the base runner shall not be judged as an attempt to reach the base or plate. The umpire can call the runner out and can eject the player if contact is determined to be malicious or flagrant.'

"The actual detail, frankly the kinds of plays that we're trying to eliminate, we haven't finely determined," Alderson said. "I would expect to put together 100 of these plays and identify which ones we want to continue to allow and other that we want to prohibit, and draft a rule accordingly."