Controversial Major League Baseball all-time hits leader Pete Rose, who infamously barreled over and seriously injured Cleveland Indians catcher Ray Fosse to score the game-winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning during the 1970 All-Star game, recently said that the MLB shouldn't take plate collisions out of the game, which is one of the many rule changes the MLB is thinking about heading into future seasons.
"You can't eliminate that. If the catcher blocks the plate, that's what is going to happen," Rose told ESPN. "In the case with myself and Ray Fosse, he had the plate blocked. I started to slide head-first. And if I slide, I'm going to break both collar bones."
With the American League Championship Series between the eventual World Series champion Boston Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers last month featuring two home plate collisions, the topic of banning that play due to the dangers in injuries is likely to pop up again during the Winter Meetings in December, according to ESPN, and a ban on the play may be carried out in the future.
ESPN reports that officials believe the changing of the rule is inevitable and may come quickly.
Rose, who scored from second on a base-hit by the Chicago Cubs' Jim Hickman to give the National League All-Stars a 5-4 victory, said that he didn't believe Fosse should have been able to block the plate since the ball hadn't made it to him at the time the run was scored.
"And to be honest with you, he was breaking the rules because I think the rule book says you can't block the plate if you don't have the ball," Rose said via ESPN.
The MLB has some people in the game in favor of the ban as manager Bruce Bochy of the San Francisco Giants is vocally on the side of outlawing those plays after catcher Buster Posey was seriously injured for most of 2011 after his ankle was shattered on a collision at the plate while Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane has told A's catches to protect themselves and stay out of the way rather than be involved in collisions and Jim Leyland, who retired after the ALCS, said he's in favor of the ban, according to ESPN.
Rose still stands by the play and in defense of his very controversial collision back in 1970.
"I hit him before the ball got there," Rose said of Fosse per ESPN. "I tried to ask him if he was OK. I mean, that's part of the game. You can't take everything away from it."
Rose is the all-time hits leader in the MLB, with 4,256 hits in his career.
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