10 bits of baseball history I learned from "A Game of Inches"

2. Sliding evolved from a defensive to a more offensive skill.

Kathy Willens/AP
A-Rod is a bit too late to nail Toronto's Rajai Davis.

At first, sliding into base was seen as a means of applying the brakes to avoid overrunning the base without incurring a charley horse. But eventually its potential for avoiding tag-outs received increasing emphasis. Some runners, however, remained reluctant in the early years to slide at all because the infields were less finely groomed and sometimes pebble-strewn.

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