Hoffarth: 'Utley Rule' slides past 'bona fide' reality

Wasn’t it Sam Cooke who first admitted: Don’t know what a slide rule is for?

Chase Utley might not know much about the history of breaking up a double play in baseball. Or know much about the geography of the “neighborhood play” at second base.

But try explaining the science, algebra and trigonometry used this week by Major League Baseball in crafting Rule 6.01(j) to a bunch of MLB graduate students.

For simplicity sake, this big-bang theory will go down as the “Utley Rule,” which is utterly “stupide,” if you pardon the French I took.

Won’t this actually result in more keystone collisions, cut down the number of double plays tued and give the infielder more leverage when, if everything’s equal, the ruer is just as much trying to protect himself from a submarine throw to his forehead?

Plus, you’re now requiring an umpire to problem solve whether a ruer is “engaged” in a “bona fide attempt” to reach second base in a safe maer, all while arms and legs and gloves are crisscrossing Pythagorean theorems.

An “E” in this equation could also be the error — it’s the ambiguities left in disceing mass-energy equivalence as it relates to a middle-infielder’s survival instincts versus the inert momentum generated by, say, a Pablo Sandoval barrel roll.

One and one don’t make two here. As much as we have to look both ways, we can’t consider the need to build a crosswalk from first to second.

What’s next, requiring a HANS device for infielders and restrictor plates for ruers?

• If this edict had been on the books, Utley would have been tossed from last fall’s Dodgers-Mets NLDS playoff game for the otherwise “hard-nosed” tactical slip-n-slide he put on shortstop Ruben Tejada, who by positioning himself in the wrong place led to his own unfortunate broken leg.

But in the context of the moment, and the importance of that game, don’t you believe Utley still would have done everything all the same, considering the intended result?

And, if Utley — a 37-year-old who in 13 major-league seasons has tued 902 double plays, made 4,074 assists and had 3,086 putouts in 7,294 chances — was the infielder on the other side of the equation, wouldn’t he have expected the opposing ruer to try the same and not complained about it?

Sam Cooke also once waed us that a change was goa come. But what a wonderful world this would be if we didn’t already have this image of Angel Heandez standing in shallow center field with his slide ruler.

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• We didn’t see the memo suggesting Dodgers fans purchase this dorky “D” hat that everyone seems to be sporting in spring training. So we’re off the hook? Just players and coaches and managers and upper management are required to wear ’em? Sorry to see that.

• A recent poll conducted by Loyola Marymount University declared 85 percent of people in L.A. want the city to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. That’s even a larger margin than the 81 percent of support the U.S. Olympic Committee discovered when trying to decide in August whether to submit a bid.

Happy, happy. Joy, joy.

But since we weren’t dialed into either of these surveys, we just need to know before we blindly commit: Who, again, is plaing to pay for this $6 billion party? Is the template from 1984 still profitable or obsolete? What kind of Airbnb rate can we get on our place while we take a holiday in Boston during those summer months?

• El Nino is first up on the Checklist of Blame in what will bog down the progress of the new Inglewood NFL stadium? Well played. Didn’t expect that to come up until at least mid-2017.

We had that one right after “Plane noise overhead is leading to incorrect communication between the blueprint holders and the rebar guys” and right before “Glare from the acts performing next door at the Forum are blinding the contractors’ assistants.”

Not to mention the eventual discovery that Deis Rodman has been squatting on the property and will refuse to leave.

• It’s Good Lord Byron Scott’s insistence that the Lakers aren’t tanking games. Not now, not then, not ever. So despite all visual evidence, they’re not appearing to try to win them either, are they?

• Nearly 50 schools have appeared in the AP Top 25 college basketball poll at one week or another this season. UCLA and USC are among them as the only Southe Califoia schools to pop in and drop out, and there’s the strong possibility neither will even be getting “others receiving votes” when March roars in.

C’mon, Anteaters?

• Top three reasons why rules should be implemented to prevent any more student court-storming after a perceived important college basketball victory?

1. It’s dangerous.

2. It’s cliche

3. It’s way more cliche than dangerous. You’re better than that.

Arizona coach Sean Miller was reasonably irked by the fact Colorado officials couldn’t stop the stampede after the Buffs polished off a win over the Wildcats on Wednesday night in Boulder.

Know a way to prevent that from happening? First, don’t lose a road game when you’re a ranked favorite. Then rally the Pac-12 to finally guilt all the ADs to pass a conference-wide rule that includes a hefty fine (as they do in the SEC) if a court-storming instance occurs.

Even if it happens at the McKale Center in Tucson after the Wildcats knock off the Sun Devils. It kinda works both ways, right, Sean?

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