David Wright once pulled the ‘hard slide’ on Chase Utley (photos)

Chase Utley is decidedly “old school.” He only half-heartedly apologized for breaking Ruben Tejada’s leg on a hard slide at second base in Game 2 of the Dodgers’ NLDS against the Mets, by texting Tejada’s teammate, David Wright. Utley reportedly wrote that his intent was not to injure, in the text.

Interesting that Utley texted Wright. Wright went quite hard into Utley at second base onJune 21, 2013, when Utley was still a member of the Phillies (see photos above).

Obviously, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly is on the side of his guy as he referenced Wright in his explanation of this past Saturday’s play.

Via NBC Sports:

“(If) their captain, David Wright,comes into (Corey) Seager and slides like that, the exact same slide, and let’s say he didn’t get hurt, there would be rumblings, but it goes away,” Mattingly said. “Guys talk and chat, but if nobody got hurt, it wouldn’t even be talked about hardly today. It would have just been a hard slide, and there would have been controversy back and forth if it was hard; but since someone got hurt, now it’s a story.

“If it would have been their guy, they would be saying, ‘David Wright, hey, he’s a gamer; he went after him. That’s the way you’ve got to play.’ But it’s our guy; it’s different. So I know how the kind of the New York media gets a little bit going, and it gets dramatic, but for me you can’t have it both ways. If David would have done it, it wouldn’t have been any problem here in New York.”