SLIDE RULES BELONG IN PHYSICS CLASSES, NOT AT SECOND BASE.

March 06 · Baseball Rules, Joe Sez · baseball rules, Rob Manfred

Okay, cotton balls, take a knee.

Is it just me, or has the tendon that connects Rob Manfred’s cranium to his sphincter suddenly grown long enough to wrap around his man grapes?

As if the bonehead 30-second clock wasn’t enough to boil the cholesterol in my blood, the Commish’s office just approved a slide rule at second base. A slide rule at second base? Are you dry humping me? I thought we already had two slide rules at second base: 1) you better slide on a double play, so the shortstop’s throw doesn’t knock your teeth out; and 2) unless you knock the shortstop on his ass trying to break up the double play, don’t bother coming back to the dugout — just leave five hundred big ones on the skipper’s desk and beg his forgiveness at the hotel bar. Maybe he’ll let you play again in … oh, I don’t know … A FRIGGIN’ MONTH!

What are we a bunch of milksop, namby-pamby, pantywaist powder puffs since Reuben Tejada made the mistake of turning his back on Chase Utley in the seventh inning of Game Two of last year’s NLDS? Utley plays hard — frankly, I wish he was Cub — and, yes, he turned Tejada into a rag doll and ended his season. But you know what else Utley did? He sparked a friggin’ four-run rally that lifted the Dodgers over the Mets in Game Two of last year’s NLDS. (God, I hate the Mets, but that’s another story.)

What in theee HELL has baseball become under the new Commish? Well, I’ll tell you, pal. We got the Buster Posey Rule at home; the Chase Utley Rule at second; and coaches reporting to spring training two weeks before pitchers and catchers so they can practice running sprints from the dugout to the mound without having a friggin’ coronary.

Hey, Robbie, you know who plays with a slide rule and a clock? College kids, that’s who. Hey, if I wanted to watch kids play I’d drive the Pinto up to Northwestern. No, thank you, Mr. Womanfred. I want to watch MEN play — hard-nosed, hairy-backed, tobacco-eatin’ men like Ty Cobb who’d wipe out a second basemen just for standing NEAR the bag. Slide rule? Please. What’s next Robbie, friggin’ Cross Out?

Joe