Bowa defends Utley, says Tejada "put himself in harm's way"

Larry Bowa can offer a unique perspective on baseball's most hotly debated topic of the last few days, the Chase Utley takeout slide on Saturday that resulted in a broken leg for Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada and a two-game suspension for the former Phillies star.

Bowa, 69, knows Utley well, as he was the six-time all-star's first major-league manager back in 2003. He obviously knows shortstop, having turned quite a few double plays over his 2,180 starts at the position spanning 16 big-league seasons. And he is also good friends with Joe Torre, who handed out Utley's suspension (which the player is appealing), from working on Torre's coaching staffs with the New York Yankees (2006-07) and the Dodgers (2008-2010).

In Bowa's opinion, the lateness of Utley's slide was the only thing the former longtime Phillies and now-Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman did wrong.

"I don't think the slide was dirty," Bowa told the Inquirer on Monday before The Darren Daulton Foundation's annual golf outing at Plymouth Country Club in Plymouth Meeting. "When you call it a dirty slide, that means you're trying to hurt somebody. I don't think he tried to hurt somebody.

"You've got a tying run at third. It's the magnitude of the game. If the situations were reversed and the Met guy did that to the Dodger guy, he would be getting an award before the game tonight. If you know Utley, he's not a dirty player. He plays hard."

Bowa also said that Tejada "put himself in harm's way." The shortstop was turned around and in the midst of spinning while trying to turn the double play.

"That's not a double-play ball," Bowa said. "Once you turn your back on a runner, you get the out and get out of the way."

Bowa, the Phillies bench coach and infield instructor of the last two seasons, said he did not think Utley's slide merited a suspension. Torre, MLB's discipline czar, ruled Sunday night that the slide violated the rule "designed to protect fielders from precisely this type of rolling block that occurs away from the base."

"If you put up every (play) where guys broke up double plays, I don't think anybody gets suspended for two days," Bowa said.

"That happened every night when we played and nobody said a word," he added. "But now, it's a different game."

According to the Los Angeles Times, Utley's appeal will not be heard before Monday night's Game 3 at Citi Field, meaning he should be available to play. He is not in the Dodgers' starting lineup, as Howie Kendrick gets the nod at second base for the third consecutive game.

Whether the Mets retaliate for Tejada's postseason-ending injury remains to be seen. Bowa, who worked under Mets manager Terry Collins from 1997-99 when Collins managed the Angels, hopes the umpires don't issue warnings to both benches at the start of the game.

"Let them play," Bowa said. "Because if you warn somebody and a pitcher pitches inside tonight and he hits somebody, he's out of the game. You can't do that. You should be able to pitch inside. The umpires know if you're throwing at a guy."