Scott Boras has never been bashful about advocating for his clients. Following Bryce Harper’s injury during Saturday night’s game, he did just that.
The Washington Nationals star was injured at first base in the first inning against the San Francisco Giants when he slipped off of the base. Fortunately, the injury didn’t end up being as bad as it initially looked. But that didn’t stop Boras from asking for more base safety.
“We go to great lengths with the soil to make sure it’s not wet and there are drying agents on the ground,” Boras said, via Jerry Crasnick of ESPN. “I don’t know what technology we apply or the studies that have been done on the composition of having a wet base. That’s certainly something we need to look into. This injury was directly related to inclement weather and a player putting his cleat on the bag and it slipping across because the surface was slick.”
Boras wasn’t done, noting similar cautions that another sport takes.
“In the NBA, when a player hits the floor and there’s perspiration on the floor, they clean it up immediately so the surface isn’t slick. In baseball, we have no one cleaning the bags between innings during inclement weather. Is there observation as the game goes where they would stop and make sure the bag is dry? We don’t do that. We don’t take measures like that for player safety that could easily be accomplished by the grounds crew and the umpires’ observations.”
There are a few points here.
One, a point that Boras failed to make (at least here) is that the game didn’t really need to be played. The rain had been present all weekend, with Friday’s game getting completely rained out.
Admittedly, that’s normally a bad argument. The two teams play on opposite coasts and are done playing each other for the season after the weekend series. Finding another make up date would be a challenge.
But this situation isn’t normal.
But with the Giants long out of contention and the Nationals essentially locked into the No. 2 seed, Saturday’s game had essentially no postseason significance. The two teams could have played their scheduled double-header on Sunday, then made up Saturday’s game after the season if necessary. That’s not ideal, but it’s also not unprecedented and more likely than not, would not have been needed.
Unfortunately, there are other flaws in his argument.
First of all, Harper’s injury was a freak occurrence. Unlike basketball players falling to the court, these kind of things don’t happen a lot.
The reason they don’t happen a lot is that Harper’s situation required some very specific things taking place.
First of all, the play at first was close. Secondly, the close play was happening right in front of Harper. Without those situations, it’s highly unlikely that Harper would have been lunging at first base. He would have gone through the base hard, but hit the front of it and therefore, would have been completely fine.
Another point is that even using Boras’ idea, first base still could have been quite wet.
The game was only in the first inning. So, it’s not as though the base had been pounded with rain for hours. Additionally, Harper was the third hitter of the inning. Even if the bases were dried, it’s entirely possible that the constant drizzle would have created a similar feeling base.
Boras is looking out for his client, which is admirable. Really, there’s no harm in drying the bases during bad weather. But in this case, his overall argument is more reactionary than logical.