Cubs coach not happy that MLB ruled Rizzo's slide illegal - 'I'm right'

By Joe Setyon May 30, 2018 at 9:38am

Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo sparked controversy on Monday with a hard slide into home plate that many people thought was dirty.

Now, Major League Baseball has come out and said the slide should have been ruled illegal, much to the chagrin of Cubs manager Joe Maddon.

In the top of the eighth inning of a game against the Pirates, Rizzo slid into Pirates catcher Elias Diaz at home plate on a grounder to short by Chris Gimenez. With one out, the Pirates were looking to turn two — at home and at first — and get out of the inning.

Here's the Rizzo slide at home #Cubs #Pirates pic.twitter.com/u9HHXmFmNr

— Aldo Soto (@AldoSoto21) May 28, 2018

Rizzo should have been out by a mile, but he slid hard, and some say went out of his way, to break up the double play. He caught Diaz below the knee and caused him to fire the ball over the first baseman’s head.

Two runs scored on the overthrow to make it 5-0 in favor of the Cubs, who ended up winning 7-0.

The play was reviewed, but the call on the field that Rizzo had done nothing illegal was upheld, per ESPN. Upset at what he saw as an unfair ruling, Pirates manager Clint Hurdle argued and was ejected.

But Hurdle, it would seem, was right to be angry, especially after MLB ruled after the game that Rizzo had changed the direction of his slide to ensure that he made contact with Diaz. The umpires, however, had originally said Rizzo did not alter his path to the plate enough to warrant a penalty.

Now, it’s Maddon who’s upset at what he believes is the wrong reaction to a good play by Rizzo.

Do you think Rizzo's slide was illegal?

“It was a good baseball play,” Maddon said. “It was interpreted the next day as being wrong, which I totally find incongruent.”

“The umpires got it right,” he added. “It’s almost like a doctor reading an MRI. You might get two different opinions with the same set of information. … I will not back down from that. I believe I’m right.”

Hurdle, for his part, is glad MLB has set a precedent so that umpires can make the correct ruling in the future. Still, he feels it’s unfair that his team had to suffer the consequences of a missed call.

“I don’t have any idea how it could be worse,” he said. “Life is not fair, sport isn’t fair. You play on. … What’s most important, from my perspective, is that we’ve let the industry know that this particular slide was illegal. For the sake of the catchers.”

Maddon, however, is of the opinion that even if the roles were reversed and it was one of his players who had been the recipient of such a hard slide, he still wouldn’t be crying foul.

“I’m here to tell the group that believes if (Cubs catcher) Willson (Contreras) got knocked down, or Gimenez, that I would have reacted differently, you’re so wrong, you’re so wrong,” Maddon said. “It’s not true. I played the position. It’s almost like a quarterback. You have to have a clock right there. You have to know what’s coming at you and get out of the way. It’s as simple as that. Anyone else trying to give you a different explanation, it’s fabricated.”

Of course, what matters in all of this is that no one sustained any serious injuries due to the play in question. Rizzo even apologized to Diaz right afterward.

“(Rizzo) said it was a difficult play, and he apologized, and I waved him off and said let’s just play ball,” Diaz said.

At the same time, he still thought the slide was uncalled for.

“When I saw the replay, I was like, ‘Man, this guy could have ended my career right here,’” Diaz said. “And I understand they called it a legal slide, but out of what I’ve been trained and what I’ve been told, that was not a legal slide.”

While it’s good that baseball’s higher-ups have used this play to agree on what is and isn’t a dirty slide, they seemed to upset all parties involved in the process. As Hurdle would say, life — and sports — sometimes just isn’t fair.

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Chicago Cubs, MLB, Pittsburgh Pirates

Joe Setyon

Deputy Managing Editor, Editorial

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Joe Setyon was a deputy managing editor for The Western Journal who had spent his entire professional career in editing and reporting. He previously worked in Washington, D.C., as an assistant editor/reporter for Reason magazine.

@JoeSetyon

Joe Setyon was deputy managing editor for The Western Journal with several years of copy editing and reporting experience. He graduated with a degree in communication studies from Grove City College, where he served as managing editor of the student-run newspaper. Joe previously worked as an assistant editor/reporter for Reason magazine, a libertarian publication in Washington, D.C., where he covered politics and wrote about government waste and abuse.

Birthplace

Brooklyn, New York

Topics of Expertise

Sports, Politics