Slideshow! 10 great photos of old-school takeouts
One of the only good byproducts to come from this Matt Holliday-Marco Scutaro takeout slide kerfluffle is that it has sent the baseball blogosphere in search of old confrontations that were even more ridiculous than Holliday's approach into second base on Monday night.
The above run-in between Kansas City's Hal McRae and New York's Willie Randolph in the 1977 ALCS was highlighted by Dayn Perry of CBS's Eye on Baseball and it inspired yours truly to barrel into the task of finding nine other comparable collisions from back in the day.
Heads up and enjoy!
Here's Cincinnati's Joe Morgan going all free safety on Oakland's Dick Green during the 1972 World Series. ESPN's Buster Olney tweeted out the video Tuesday morning and it's been the talk of Twitter. Hey, at least he didn't go helmet to helmet.
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Oh, yes, nothing to see here. It's just Dave Winfield crashing into Steve Sax during the 1982 All-Star game. No, it didn't "count" back then. Except that it did.
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The only thing more hard-core than a takeout slide in the All-Star game? Lee Lacy getting the job done against a gloveless Wally Backman in a spring training contest.
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Those old Royals-Yankee postseason match ups were before my time, but I have to believe the tales of it being a great rivalry since four slides from that '77 ALCS appear in this post. Here's George Brett working it out against Willie Randolph ...
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... and tiny Freddie Patek being bullied by Cliff Johnson ...
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... and Johnson doing his thing again against Frank White. This one broke up a triple play.
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Davey Lopes tries to leapfrog Chris Chambliss during the 1978 World Series.
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Well, this had to hurt. Check out Gil McDougald's spikes as he takes out Brooklyn's Jim Gilliam during the 1956 World Series.
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Not everything back in the day had to be dirty. Here's Philadelphia's Dick Sisler taking out Brooklyn's Jackie Robinson with a textbook takeout slide on the day the Whiz Kids clinched the 1950 NL pennant. You hear a lot of old stories about Robinson being spiked at second base after breaking the color barrier, but not on this play.
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Finally, here's an bonus photo. It doesn't involve a takeout slide, but tell me how I was not supposed to show this Oscar Gamble picture to you after finding it in the archive?
Make sure all your bases are covered this postseason ...
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