Home plate collisions on way out

Baseball as you knew it is changing.

The major leagues, years after Little League did it, are expanding the use of instant replay and giving managers the ability to lodge challenges. And this week, a Major League Baseball rules committee announced plans to institute a rule banning head- or shoulder-first home plate collisions.

That’s right: No more Pete Rose crashing into Ray Fosse or Buster Posey being bowled over.

Sandy Alderson, general manager of the New York Mets and chairman of the rules committee, said baserunners will not be allowed to knock over a catcher for the purpose of dislodging the ball. Presumably, catchers won’t be allowed to block the plate without the ball, either. In fact, that’s already prohibited, though rarely enforced.

Exactly how the new rule would work is to be determined, and right now there are more questions than answers.

“It has to do with a number of different things: positioning, intent, a variety of things that we are going to look at,” Alderson said. “Umpires will have some discretion, but at the same time, umpires have other things to do, deciding whether the run scores or doesn’t score. So it’s a little more complicated than it would appear.”

Angels Manager Mike Scioscia, who was as much of a wall as any catcher during his playing days with the Dodgers, said the new rule is catching up with the times. “When I was growing up as a kid in Philadelphia, it was a badge of honor,” he said. “You were expected to hang in at the plate, and the runner was expected to do everything he could to tag the plate. We’re going back 40 years ago, but the mind-set has changed a bit.”

Pete Rose, as you might expect, thinks it’s a bad idea: “What are they going to do next,” he asked, “you can’t break up a double play?”

Changing that kind of old-school mind-set is part of the challenge, according to Alderson. “I think ultimately what we want to do is change the culture of acceptance that these plays are ordinary and routine and an accepted part of the game,” he said. “... the risks and individual risks, the costs associated in terms of health and injury, just no longer warrant the status quo.”

Concern about concussions was part of the impetus. “It’s an emerging issue,” Alderson said, “and one that we in baseball have to address as well as other sports.”

The new rule will be formally presented to baseball’s owners in January. If approved there and also by the players’ union, it would be enforced next season. If passed by the owners and not by the union, MLB could unilaterally implement it in 2015.

The owners are also expected to vote on expanded replay, although there was also some confusion expressed by managers and general managers at the winter meetings over exactly how that system might work. Any change must be ratified by both the players’ and umpires’ unions.

“I know we have the technology,” said Joe Torre, MLB’s vice president for baseball operations. “We can’t ignore it.

“But we certainly don’t want to affect the rhythm of the game.”

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mike.hiserman@latimes.com