Does going in head first get you there sooner? Have any of those guys with too much time on their hands ever tested this to get an objective answer? If it's about the same as feet first, are there really more injuries from head first, or is that just the impression? If the timing is about the same and the injuries to the base runner are greater with head first, does it not behove the ball club to teach feet first and to insist on it for their players? I have read that Ty Cobb used to sit on the dugout steps before games sharpening his spikes in full sight of the opposition. They say it cut down on blocked bases.

"Hook Slide" ... don't even get me started on #$%^ dead coaching.
That's TWO injuries this year, because players are skill
deficient at sliding. What's it going to take to "HAVE A CLINIC"?

I perfer spikes high but a hook slide should suffice about 80% of the time in my book.

1. The whole "Ty Cobb sharpening his spikes" bit is about the most overplayed meme in baseball history.

If a fielder is foolish enough to drop a leg in front of a base in front of a full grown man sliding into a base at full tilt, it's gonna fuck him up whether the spikes are sharp, dull or otherwise...

2. Most will say headfirst is more dangerous...perhaps, but it's not like feet first is fully "safe", even with perfect technique. And how much more dangerous is it? How more likely are you to get hurt sliding headfirst? A tiny fraction of an amount? A trillion times more likely? Somewhere in between those two I;d imagine...who the hell knows?

Sliding is just a part of the game where injuries happen. The point of the entire endeavor is to go from a full run, to a full stop onto an object fixed firmly into the ground as fast as possible with another player and a 5 ounce projectile travelling 60-90mph all converging on the same spot.

Injuries happen, because the player doesn't go into a slide with the best choices.
I visited a lot of camps and I rarely see a clinic on sliding. When "head first" is above
10% of all player slides, it shows a lack of teaching and poor skill sets. That's not just
the Rangers, but throughout Baseball. Kids are NOT being taught proper techniques from
Little League through Babe Ruth & even High School. Fingers are fragile and so are wrist,
Knads, shoulders & collar bones... not to mention necks & head area. Head First slides are
Russian Roulette, with a players career... at any level.

@Pull T
There was nothing meme, meh or anything BUT a pure Baseball Man-Animal, in Ty Cobb.
He was a "One in a Century" type Baseball player. All out every pitch, play game & career.
The Myth in play, is the True Reality... so be it Cobb's Legend. His private life, is more the Myth.

Cobb all out every game?

Well, other than that one game where he and Dutch Leonard conspired to tank a game against he Tribe....allegedly of course...even Landis knew he couldn't look at that one too hard...

That's why Leonard never showed before Landis on his accusations of Cobb?
He was a loud mouth whiner. He hated Cobb, as many did, and tried to screw him.
Cobb would intentionally bunt, knowing Leonard had to cover, then roll over him.
They never conspired anything together. Read the Letters of Smokey Joe Wood,
Tris Speaker and Cobb's. It was a National joke... all because of Dutch Leonard's
jealousy of Cobb.

PT~
All due respect, but you need to stick with what you know... not to argue merely to argue.
Landis looked at it VERY hard and acquitted Speaker and Cobb. It was a rich, ridiculous drivel.