People Who Dive into First Base Should Be Shot

If you're playing baseball & slide into First Base, you deserve being summarily shot. No trial. No defense. Double tap to the head. Bamm, you're dead.

Anyone who knows me will confirm this is one of the things that drives me bonkers each & every (expletive deleted) time. So much so its #7 in my life rules, "If you slide into first base, you deserve everything that's coming to you."

The pet peeve is bad. It doesn't matter if I watch it on Sportscenter or a game at the local Single A level or high school baseball. I go apesh** each & every time.

The whole point of BEING ALLOWED to overrun first base is because the batter, unlike all the other base-runners, is starting from a stationary position & has no chance to build up speed. That & all their attention is simply focused on making contact with the ball. The act of sliding into any base is designed to slow down ones momentum so the base-runner DOES NOT overrun his base & thus be tagged "out."

Why buggers still continue to dive into First is beyond me? If I were the manager & one of my players does that, their butt is being benched for stupidity. I don't care if they're a highly priced free agent or a minor league trying to earn their spot on the roster.

Oh, sure they'll try to claim they were avoiding a tag. But this isn't American Football where one can strip the ball from the fielder (alla A-Rod in the 2004 ALCS style). To make this stupidity even worse, 95% of the dives to first base happen when another fielder (say the shortstop or 2nd base) is making the throw for the 1st base force out. Yes, those batters periodically will get on base by diving but (as the saying goes) a broken clock is right twice a day.

Below is the latest example & the player should not only be royally mocked not only for diving into first base but also because he's a big-time player w/ a fat contract who ended up hurting themselves doing something dumb he shouldn't have been doing in the first place.

http://www.nesn.com/2012/09/mark-teixeiras-horrible-decision-to-slide-into-first-rewarded-by-bad-karma-from-baseball-gods-video.html


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This is an outtake of Cait playing around in one of the local baseball/softball dugouts.



Feel free to comment on any part of this if you so choose.