Interesting piece on Utley causing season-ending injury to SFG OF Gregor Blanco. Inadvertent it seemed at the time. But was it....?
The author wonders in his piece about the possibility of confirmation bias on his part.
I think that's the best explanation for how anyone could look at this video and see evil intent on a play in which the infielder has to a) run to second base to cover the bag, b) change direction the moment he reaches the bag because the ball is tailing back into the runner, and c) get low enough to be in position to block and field a ball that arrives off line and late while the runner is diving into him.
It strains credulity to assert that Utley "caused" the injury to Blanco. It looked to me like two guys playing hard and happening to be in the same spot at the same time, a spot Utley arrived at because the ball led him there.
It also looked like the two players were about equally exposed to risk of injury. If that helmet had hit Utley a little lower or at a different angle, Utley could have been the one whose season had been ended.
There's no way a non-superhuman could do everything Utley had to do on that play while also intentionally putting his knee in just the right spot that the impact would hurt the runner but not him.