It’s fairly irritating when retired baseball players give the whole “Back in my day, things were different” spiel (I’m look at YOU, Tom Seaver). But when someone plays that card and says something totally asinine and illogical, the only medicine is to turn off the TV.
This is Dave Winfield a few minutes ago on Baseball Tonight, giving his take in a discussion about whether baseball needs better helmets to protect batters:
“Well I came from a different era, so to speak. Essentially, we didn’t wear the flaps, I didn’t like them. I grew up, uh, you knew how to move away from the ball, from the plate. And there was a different law in baseball, essentially, where, um, when it came down to it, they would throw at batters, and you just had to learn how to come back. Are you man enough ...” (Gets cut off by a befuddled Karl Ravetch)
You hear that, David Wright? If only you played 20 years ago, you’d know how to get out of the way of that 94 mph Matt Cain fastball and not allow it to hit you in the head. Kids these days.
On a side note, it was a bit creepy that earlier this week, Wright was pretty supportive of a new Rawlings batting helmet.