Those @sshats in the Cardinals BBS are b****ing and moaning about the announcers praising Clemens, one even called his mother "deranged". Like I gave a flying eff about Mark "Raging Steriods" McGwire when the cameras were lodged up his anus when he was going for the homerun record, but I endured it without whining like a your typical Cards fan.
Nunez was smack in the base path. Options were: a.) Run outside of HIS basepath, taking a longer route to the bag to avoid contact. b.) Flat out run over Nunez. c.) Slide through him. Lane chose option c. A lot of instinct takes over - you're used to sliding to the same point where the fielder was situated, except this time Nunez wasn't situated anywhere near the bag. Nunez was in the basepath and up the line, he put himself in that situation against a runner with a lot of momentum and is a pretty big guy. The throw was offline and Nunez tried to make a risky and spectacular play. Didn't work out for him. A good comparison for this situation would be the Francouer-Lamb play from the Atlanta series. Difference is, Lamb's a pretty beefy guy and Francouer had less time to build up momentum. It sucks Nunez got hurt, but he put himself in a situation where it could happen.
bwahahaha, that's new. There is no difference between what Lane did and a player breaking up a double play. He never meant to injure Nunez. He was, I believe, trying to interfere with throw, which is good baseball. Same thing for him trying to sheild Molina from getting the throw by Luna by running towards the inside of the baseline. It's legal and a smart move. It just shows that Lane is a heady ball player who was aware of the situtation. He also probably recalls Molina tagging Morgan out at home in game 1 by catching a throw to the inside of home plate. Of course Luna lauched it to the outside and Molina was inside which is why that throw looked worse than it actually was.
It's pretty consistent to both support Lane's right to run over Nunez (that's baseball - you are supposed to do that) and call out Sanders (that's not baseball - you are not supposed to do that). I was thinking that if Lane had run him over Pete Rose style he would have scored right then...
It wasn't a dirty play at all. Unfortunate that Nunez got hurt, I never like to see a player go down with an injury, but thats just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Same thing happened to Biggio a few years back when he tried to make a play at second and got creamed by the runner, tore up his knee and required surgery too.
We're kinda lucky Nunez was sent out. The new 3rd base guy overthrew the ball to home allowing us to score our 4th run and if Nunez was there I REALLY doubt we wouldve made that run and the score couldve been tied at the 9th inning!
I didn't think it was dirty, but it did remind me of this incident from the 1934 World Series: *** http://tsn.sportingnews.com/archives/worldseries/1934.html The Cardinals struck for seven runs in the third inning, an outburst touched off by Diz's double. The big blow in the Cardinals' rally, which was waged against four Detroit pitchers, was Frisch's three-run double. In the sixth, Medwick knocked in a run with a triple -- he slid hard into Tigers third baseman Marv Owen -- and scored on first baseman Rip Collins' fourth hit of the game. It was now 9-0. The mood among Detroit fans, festive at the start of Game 7, was changing with every new entry to the Cardinals' half of the scoreboard. In fact, when Medwick turned to his left-field station during the middle of the sixth inning, Tiger boosters couldn't contain themselves. Nor their containers. Bottles started flying in Medwick's direction. Plus fruit, vegetables and other debris. A 9-0 deficit and a hard slide had added up to trouble, which Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis quelled by ordering Medwick from the game. The commissioner apparently thought the Cards hardly needed Joe's services at this point. Landis was right. Out came Medwick and in went Chick Fullis. And on St. Louis went to a Series-clinching 11-0 victory, with Diz permitting only six hits and the Cardinals collecting 17 overall.
From watching the highlight over and over (I have it, I can upload it if you like), Lane did not take the direct route to the base. Lane's momentum coming off second already took him the outfield side of the direct-line basepath between 2nd and 3rd. Nunez however was in the direct line basepath, where Lane was not. From where Lane was, on the outfield side of the basepath, he had a clear path to 3rd. Instead, he took a slight detour, straight into Nunez. So option a should actually read a.) Stay in his projected path and head directly to third, lessening or even avoiding contact. All I'm saying is though it's not technically "dirty" going by the baseball bushido code, something just doesn't seem right when someone intentionally goes after your vulnerable parts while you are in a vulnerable position.
As a big-time Astros fan and also somebody who has played literally hundreds of games at 3rd base, I have to say that Lane's slide was dirty. It was within the rules of the game, but he went out of his way to hit Nunez.
Dirty, NO, but was it something that could have been avoided, I think yes...But he did not intentionally do this or plan it in anyway, but that's baseball...
Either he slides and hits him or barrels into him like a linebacker. Which do Cards fans want? Not dirty at all.
BS. His play was just baseball. You've never made a hard slide during a close play? You don't think about it, you just try and make the play. Lane made the play, thank god, and it worked out. He could have easily been out and Nunez uninjured. Just the breaks of the game. I agree with halfbreed.
I don't find it dirty at all. Lane could have just run him over like a catcher, but he went down......giving Nunez a chance to jump over like a play at 2nd base. Good hard baseball....got to do what you got to do... DD
Not dirty at all. Nunez left his normal position and into the basepath to try to tag and/or block Lane early. Lane was going to be safe and Nunez was trying to cheat the play. Lane's act was less dirty than bowling over a catcher or a catching blocking the plate on a smaller guy, and even that is pretty routine in situations like this. Once Nunez left the normal position to apply an early tag (if not block Lane before he had the ball which would be interference I believe) all bets are off.
