So—Josh Hamilton broke his arm Tuesday, and is apparently going to miss a month or two as a result of the injury. He broke it playing what announcers like to call hard-nosed baseball—on the advice of the Texas Rangers' third base coach, Dave Anderson, he ran for home plate after the Tigers' catcher and third baseman both ran after the same foul pop-up. The catcher, Victor Martinez, got back in time to block Hamilton's hard-nose-first slide and break his arm.
↵This kind of thing is easy to overreact to—players have gotten hurt doing a number of other things, like playing Guitar Hero or just throwing a baseball, as Bryan Augenstein could tell you. But how many times out of a hundred does that play have to work to justify the microscopic risk that Josh Hamilton, your injury-prone superstar hitter, might break his arm if you try it?
↵I love heads-up, crazy baseball moves like this one, but I like them more when somebody other than Josh Hamilton is trying to make them. Let David Eckstein sprint down the first-base line on 4-3 grounders; if I've got Albert Pujols on my team, or Josh Hamilton, he's jogging.
↵