Giants and Cousins release statements on Posey fallout

Cousins:

I hope and believe that Mr. Sabean's comments were made in the heat of the moment and are based more on his fondness for Buster Posey than on any animosity towards me. This situation is still an open wound for many, including myself. As I have stated previously, nobody outside of Buster feels worse about his injury than I do. I have reached out to Buster to let him know how badly I feel about his being injured during our collision at home plate.

I do believe, however, that the play was clean and totally within the rules of the game. Explaining over and over that I would never intentionally hurt another player for any reason won't change the minds of those who doubt my sincerity or intent. I have a responsibility to myself, my teammates, and my organization to play the game hard. This is what has gotten me to the big leagues, and hopefully this is what will keep me here.

San Francisco:

This is a very emotional time for the Giants organization and our fans. We lost for the season one of our best players to a serious injury and we are doing everything we can to support Buster Posey through this very difficult time. We appreciate Scott Cousins' outreach to Buster Posey and to the Giants organization.

Brian Sabean's comments yesterday were said out of frustration and out of true concern for Buster and were not meant to vilify Scott Cousins. Brian has been in contact with Florida Marlins General Manager Larry Beinfest to clarify his comments and to assure him that there is no ill-will toward the player. He has also reached out to Scott Cousins directly...

We intend to move beyond conversations about last week's incident and focus our attention on Buster's full recovery and on defending our World Series title.

Echoing Janie, that didn't sound like much of an apology (In Rumsfeldian terms, it is the quintessential non-apology apology). I take the Giants on their implication that Sabean apologized to Cousins and Beinfest directly. Hopefully this issue will be fully resolved by the time the Marlins and Giants next play each other in August (though I have my doubts).

I still think baseball needs to address the rule which allows runners to plow into catchers (and catchers to block a runner's path to the plate), so I hope this round of statements will allow both teams to put the specific incident behind them and advocate for a rule change. Not that MLB will necessarily make a logical and needed change...