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Sam Mellinger: Royal on Royal violence (or: Why Sal Perez’s injury isn’t Drew Butera’s fault, or the WBC’s fault)

Ned Yost picked up the phone, heard his franchise catcher was injured after being run into by his backup catcher in what amounts to a marketing campaign disguised as competitive baseball, and, well, yeah.

The Royals manager’s reaction was the same as yours, probably.

“I’m kicking Drew’s ass when I see him,” Yost said.

That would be Drew Butera, the backup, who … how do we describe what he did to starter Salvador Perez in a World Baseball Classic game the other day?

Initially, everybody called it a collision, and that’s true, in the technical sense: Butera did collide with Perez.