Of course it's good for the MLB. Was losing Buster Posey worth defending one run in one game of a 162 game season? Would losing Yadier Molina be worth that? Would a career ending injury be worth that? With the way players eat up the payroll, the catcher, typically underpaid to do a hugely important job, is far too important.

Some of my friends were debating this on Facebook, and one of them played the ultimate Win Card for any debate:

"If people wonder why I'm so passionate about this issue, well . . . I lost my left testicle in a home plate collision during a college intramural game."

Check and mate. Give that man the win.

In other news, Rob Gronkowski gets his knee blown out last Sunday why? Because, in order to avoid penalties and fines in the NFL, defenses will not start tackling *low* to avoid and helmet-to-helmet contact...which for some refs has now become shoulder-to-shoulder contact = penalty.

Stay tuned for a dramatic increase in season-ending knee injuries in order to "protect" NFL players...

@Krellin,
The difference there is that football requires tackling. Take out all the hitting and there's no game left. It's not evident that the same can be said of baseball.

^ Well, okay, if you take out all the *hitting* baseball would be really boring... but... you know what I mean. All the tackling.

@hecks -- errr....I *agree* with the MLB...not sure how I could be any clearer about that.

That being said, the NFL making asinine decisions about how you can tackle someone in a brutally violent sport is a bit ridiculous. Whever you apply the amount of force these guys apply -- which is basically like getting in a car crash, as Reggie Bush describes it (imagine 20-30 car crashes in one day...) -- some body part can/will be injured.

Do you want to risk a head, which has a protective covering and is recessed from the shoulder...or a knee, very fragile, and able to be destroyed in a single blow.

NFL has chosen to protect the head. Knees will blow as a result so that players can avoid $10's of thousands in fines.

@Krellin,
Oh, I missed that the first post was yours as well, and only noticed your second one. I thought you were drawing an analogy between the helmet-to-helmet rules and the proposed home-plate rules, calling both detrimental.

As to the NFL, I think their efforts are well-intentioned, but there's only so much you can do to protect somebody in a game that requires that much contact. The result is that people are getting badly hurt in different ways. It's pro football, and whatever rules you establish, guys are going to find the most efficient method within those rules to fuck each other up. That's the name of the game.