Clayton Kershaw is a Second Baseman?

Everyone had their own take on Chase Utley‘s “slide” injuring Ruben Tejada and the subsequent suspension.  Of all these people only Clayton Kershaw would play the you ever played card. His full quote: 

I feel like MLB got, you know, a little bullied into suspending him. I’ve seen slides a lot worse. And then, you know, the main thing I want to say is we all feel bad for what happened to Ruben. You know, that’s a terrible thing. You know, you never want to see that happen. It’s devastating. You never want to see a guy get hurt. You know, with that said, there’s a lot of people that have a lot of different opinions about it that probably shouldn’t because they’re not middle infielders and they have no idea what they’re talking about.  [emphasis mine]

So, if we go by Kershaw’s standard that only middle infielders can offer an opinion, why is he talking?  He says he’s seen worse. When?  Every example you could present was before his time. 

This play wasn’t as bad and it lead to a brawl:

Here’s the main example:

The Hal McRae slide was arguably worse. However, I didn’t see the Yankees accept it as a hard nosed play. They lost it and rightfully so. So to act like a bad slide is part of the game is nonsense.

Regardless, this play should stand on its own merits. Kershaw effectively asked us to dismiss his opinion since he’s not a middle infielder. I guess since I was a catcher, I can’t offer an opinion. With that said, here’s the opinions of some middle infielders:

So you know what Clayton, the middle infielders say it was dirty. I’ll take your advice and listen to what they have to say about it. Maybe you should do the same, you know, since you never played there. 

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