Posted: 7/29/2012 11:42:37 AM EDT
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I never could or would slide face first. I played baseball in middle and high school. Coach and my dad didn't believe in the face first slide.
Their argument was hard to refute. Would you rather have a face full of leather or a foot full of leather on the tag? Which is will give more pause to the baseman? Your face or your cleats? Just finished watching Bull Durham (wife had never seen it and loved it). She started asking about sliding (when I commented on "Nuke" wearing sliding pants in one scene in the locker room) and thought I would get ARFCOM's wisdom. |
| The only play I possibly wouldn't go feet first is if going to third on a throw from the outfield. Minimal chance of getting injured diving into the bag on that play, but the 3B could always drop his knee and jack you up. There's just too big of a risk of breaking fingers, hands, wrists going in headfirst on most plays. Mike Trout about broke his neck last week stealing second. Then again, sometimes people get their spikes caught and break their leg in half like Stephen drew last season. But it's far less common than headfirst injuries. |
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Depends on the purpose of the slide. If you want to.beat the tag, face first. If you want to break up a play or concede the out, feet first. With your experience, I would assume you would agree. Yes and no. I wore glasses the entire time I played. Had diminished vision in one eye. No way I was going face first. And as I said, my coach didn't believe (or want maybe) his players going face first. This was mid 80s. ETA: and how long did baseball go without the face first slide? In my HS and the teams I played it seemed almost universal feet first but it was becoming more sexy to face first. and I'm not convinced that face first is faster on beating the tag but will concede that the hands are more dexterous (pardon the pun) on beating the tag. |
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I don't play baseball, and am not a fan of the game, so it doesn't matter to me which parts of his body a player decides to sacrifice.
Your body is no longer going either direction. I guess if I was going to look at it, I would want to review research on which way ends up being faster and go with that one. |
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Depends on the purpose of the slide. If you want to.beat the tag, face first. If you want to break up a play or concede the out, feet first. With your experience, I would assume you would agree. this, but if you never practiced sliding in head first it isn't something you'd wanna do on the fly, unless you mind a broken finger/hand |
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When I pointed out the sliding shorts to my wife during the movie, she commented on how some of the guys were sliding face first (when they were goofing off with the sprinklers) so what good are sliding shorts.
I told her I only ever slid feet first but that some people slide face first but I have no experience with it. She liked Bull Durham so much that she wants to buy it for the library. 
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That's ninja. |
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Quantitatively there is no difference according to physicists. "We found no statistically significant difference in speed between headfirst and feet-first sliding at all levels of play in this study,"
concluded University of Texas researchers in a 2002 American Journal of Sports Medicine analysis of base-stealing techniques. However, One study did find that headfirst sliders reached second base .02 seconds faster. Back-of-the-napkin calculations show that a runner traveling at 15 miles per hour would get an extra five inches from that .02 seconds. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/science-stumped/ |
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I would go in both ways, until I heard, in the next-to-last year that I played, that little league was planning on banning headfirst slides the next year. Then, I made it a point to go in headfirst every time until the end of the season. My baseball participation ended in 1989. I did play a little softball in college with the guys from a local bar. Doesn't surprise me the ban on head first. As I said, my coach didn't like it or my dad (PR, hardly a baseball backwater) on safety grounds (and my coach was retired USMC EOD guy) |
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I almost always slid face first I was a catcher. Everyone came in standing or cleats in my face. Almost everyone slides into home feet first. Like someone above said, it depends on the situation. I wasn't very gifted athletically anyway. I could catch however and had good stamina at that position. Average speed and below average bat. So, I wasn't spending alot of time on base to be very nuanced in my sliding. |