ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The last time Mark Teixeira and Bobby Wilson got up-close-and-personal around home plate, Teixeira scored a run and Wilson, then a member of the Los Angeles Angels making his first-big league start as a catcher, left the field on a stretcher, out cold.
That was five years ago, and the Yankees wound up losing that game, 6-4.
Fast forward to Wednesday night, when Teixeira and Wilson, now a catcher for the Tampa Bay Rays, came together once again in a similar play at Tropicana Field. Just like last time, the throw beat Teixeira, and just like last time, Wilson fielded it on a hop.
But unlike last time, there was no home-plate collision, no need for a stretcher, and no run for the Yankees, who wound up losing 3-2, to lose a second consecutive game in the four-game series that concludes Thursday night.
It might not have changed the ultimate outcome of the game, but what has really changed over the past five years is the way bang-bang plays at the plate are conducted in this safety-first era of Major League Baseball.
"Two years ago, absolutely I would have run the catcher over," Teixeira said. "I’ve run over plenty of catchers in my career. If you slide into a guy who is blocking the plate, you can break your ankle and ruin your career, so the only way to protect yourself and try to be safe is to lower your shoulder. That’s been taken away, so the only thing you can do is try to jump around him."
Because of a rule change adopted in February 2014, a response to a 2011 home-plate collision that left San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey with a broken leg, that violent collision of catcher and baserunner has been outlawed with one exception: If the catcher is holding the baseball and standing in the baseline, blocking the runner's direct path to home plate.
The intent of the rule, of course, is to protect the catcher. But the effect of the rule is a league full of confused baserunners, not knowing whether to charge, slide, or just give up. To call the rule ambiguous is an insult to true ambiguity. The way it is written allows for broad interpretation by the umpires and the league and a lot of head-scratching on the part of base-runners.
"You have to make that decision like 70 feet out," Teixeira said. "You can't decide at the last second. So it's not even in our minds to run guys over anymore. If you run a guy over and you're not supposed to, they're going to send the Wells Report after you or something."
Teixeira said he wasn't sure if Wilson gave him the required lane or not, and he chose not to run him over out of fear of suspension.
“I saw the replay," he said. "If I slide into him, I’m out. If I run into him, I’m suspended, probably. I did the only thing I could do."
His manager -- a former catcher himself -- has always been confounded by the rule and in the past has said that if baseball didn't clarify it, he would advise his runners to continue with business as usual. That is, running over the catcher when necessary.
"I think there’s probably more confusion on the baserunner’s part than the catchers part," Joe Girardi said. "Catchers just continue to do what they’ve always done."
Asked if he would have advise Tex to go bulldozer on Wilson again, Girardi said, "It’s a decision and something Tex has done before. He didn’t this time. He kinda moved late, and it is what it is."
Sounds kinda like a "yes."
The truth is, it's a dumb rule, confusing to everyone but frightening enough to the baserunners that no one wants to challenge it. It's also part of a growing trend in professional sports, an attempt to take as much danger out of the games as possible. No hitting the quarterback, no pitching inside, no retaliation. And no home-plate collisions.
"It takes away our options as runners," Teixeira said. “It’s very vague. Did he have the ball? Did the throw take him (into the lane)? Whatever. All I know is you can't run into the catcher anymore. Can't do it. I had to go around him."
It also took away the Yankees' last real scoring chance in a game they led 2-0 after the first half-inning. After Teixeira got thrown out, they managed just three singles the rest of the way and struck out six times in the last four innings. They wasted a fine seven-inning outing by Adam Warren, stranded 10 runners, and couldn't score another run after the first inning.
As a result, they lost two games in a row for the first time since April 14-15, and they've only just started on a nine-game, three-city road trip.
Teixeira running over Wilson again might not have changed that, but it would at least have given the Yankees something they lacked for the final eight innings of the game: A fighting chance.