I have to say I’m surprised by the mushroom cloud generated by Anthony Rizzo’s home-plate collision with Padres catcher Austin Hedges. It’s been the talk of the baseball world, or at least the corners of it around which I tend to roam, for the 18 hours or so. But now we may finally have the answer as to whether or not it was actually illegal.
According to Ken Rosenthal, MLB has informed both the Cubs and Padres that Rizzo was indeed in violation of rule 7.13, the Buster Posey Rule, implemented in 2014 to protect catchers from bone-crushing hits at home.