this is a non issue…if he didn’t hit him i would have suspended him…my i should be more understanding and forgive all and say albert should have handed him flowers at the plate and then stood there asking the young cather to tag him out… then they could have hooked pinkys and skipped off the field together spreading good will among men…

It used to be the case that actions during the game that did not lead to ejection were not subject to further sanctions from the league office. I remember one brawl where Nolan Ryan (then with Texas) got a few punches on the batter (probably of the ChiSox) who had just charged the mound after being hit. Since the umpires did not eject Ryan, he could not be suspended.

I have yet to see the play, being we don’t get many Cards games out here in the desert, however it sounds like Pujols did the right thing after the game if he thought he was wrong during it.
If I were Houston players or fans I’d hate Pujols too, considering the hurting he’s personally put on that franchise over the years, including destroying their closers (Lidge) confidence so badly they had to trade him out of the division because he can’t even pitch with Pujols in the park.

Seems like everyone is just a bit too sensitive. Backe says that it’s over but then says this to explain why he became so upset with Pujols, “Because I felt violated,” Backe said. “I felt like he confronted me at the wrong time. I don’t think it was very professional on his part”.

Gimme a break. He felt violated? isn’t that something we should reserve for sexual assault cases? Seems that Backe didn’t like getting talked to in front of the guys. He forgot about the incident and now appears worried about his own cred.

Time to shut down and watch for the next sent of insults to fly.

We all have too much time on our hands. Let’s volunteer somewhere and quit wasting time here.

Well, some of these comments sure are laced with barbwire, but none quite as deep as that last one there, Lemon Jay. Ouch. No, no, go volunteer. The Boy Scout in me insists, even encourages. But to write it’s wasting time in here … That sounds like something JSL!!!!@#%!! would say.

And as for “censorship”. See, here’s the thing. All for free discussion. Big fan of debate. But we can’t work blue here. There are lexicon lines that cannot be crossed — even in comments — because this is still a newspaper and there is an audience that includes ages not yet in that PG-13 crowd.

We now return to the lively banter.

dg
-30-

Nobody mentions these facts:
1. Towles was in the area of the plate where a play could be made.
2. The ball was coming in
3.Runners were on base.

If Houston is going to attempt to make a play at the plate by throwing there, the catcher was fair game. If that throw had resulted in a ball going past Towles, and Glaus advancing to third or possibly even scoring, because Pujols took out the catcher, I say here here…hard nosed baseball.
In this case it didn’t happen.. But my point is Houston hung their catcher out to dry by trying to make a play that they knew they couldn’t. Towles should have completely cleared home plate. When Pujols came around third, all he could see was Towles ready to acccept the ball, he had no choice but to take him out…plain, simple, baseball.

If there wasn’t a play at the plate then how come Cardinals player Chris Duncan motioned for him to slide. He got the run, spikes down, no one hurt–whats the issue? Is it because Houston lost?

The Rays didn’t even cry as much when their player was spiked at 2nd base by a Yank and that player was ejected.

I can’t believe we are even disussing this. I live in Las Vegas and am a 51’s fans (Dodger AAA) and competive plays like this seem to be more accepted and appreciated in the junior leagues then in the pretty (big) leagues.

I love the slide from Albert, kinda reminds you of the Gashouse Gang in ‘34. All he’s doing is going hard and playing all out, nothing wrong with that, La Russa tells his players to play a hard 9. This is going to be part of this team’s idenity. Besides, the Backe incident awoke a sleeping giant, 2 HR’s and 3 RBI’s, Sir Albert has arrived.

I played a little semi-pro for fun. One game, against the best team by far in the league, I got taken out at third base while standing there waiting for a throw that didn’t come. I asked the runner ‘why?’…

He told me that if he didn’t play the game hard, every inning, he wouldn’t be playing for that coach. In other words, playing the game was far more important than any worrying about getting hurt (If you are willing to hurt, you are willing to BE hurt).

What is happening, don’t you think?, is that the money is so huge these days that it is changing the way the players interact with one another. They are starting to insinuate that ‘hard play’ is too dangerous to everyone’s paychecks.