Baseball is one of the last sports to allow their athletes to use metal cleats. Getting spiked can give a player nightmares.

The bottom of a player’s foot now becomes a weapon that leaves permanent damage. The cleats don’t actually use spikes like they use to run track. These cleats have rectangular metal plates.

The metal on a player’s cleats can be a deciding factor on another players’ career. The severity of being spiked may result in an injury so severe they may never be able to play the sport again.

Baseball is not supposed to be a contact sport, but at times it can be riddled with unnecessary contact.

The MLB is trying to protect their athletes by trying to prevent all potential collisions. Some people only watch baseball for the head-on collisions at the plate and the rough slides into bases. Similar to people who only watch NASCAR for the bone-chilling crashes and death-defying burnouts; the same reason that people watch hockey in hopes that a fight will break out. People seem to find pleasure and entertainment in other people’s suffering.

The MLB is considering eliminating all at home collisions because statistically it is the most dangerous play in baseball. Many players have gotten injured from home plate traffic jams which never seems to go well for anybody.

When a collision occurs, the catcher tries his best to protect the plate from the base runner who is barreling down the third base line. The catcher must catch the ball and manage to hang onto it while getting blindsided by the oncoming runner.

This new rule would force all runners to slide into home plate and any other collisions resulting from not sliding will cause the runner to be called out while sparking an immediate ejection.

The MLB has now approved a rule change that will eliminate the four-pitch intentional walk. The move comes directly from the MLB in an attempt to make the games shorter by cutting out the extra four pitches.

Some games have come down to a pitcher having to execute a proper four pitches in a row just for the batter to reach base safely. Occasionally the pitcher will throw a wild pitch and runners can advance bases at their own risk.

This move will completely eliminate a wild pitch stemming from an intentional walk. A game of baseball is long enough already so this rule change will have a positive impact on the pace in which the game is played.

Jordan Jarrell can be reached at [email protected] or @theorion_sports on Twitter.