{"id":560,"date":"2010-06-03T22:05:09","date_gmt":"2010-06-04T04:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/?p=560"},"modified":"2010-06-03T22:09:05","modified_gmt":"2010-06-04T04:09:05","slug":"debate-renewed-after-cleveland-pitcher-david-huff-gets-beaned-should-baseball-pitchers-wear-helmets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/debate-renewed-after-cleveland-pitcher-david-huff-gets-beaned-should-baseball-pitchers-wear-helmets.html","title":{"rendered":"Should Baseball Pitchers Wear Helmets?: Debate Renewed After Cleveland Pitcher Gets Beaned"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\u00a0It hasn\u2019t even been a week since New York Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez hit Cleveland Indians pitcher David Huff in the head with a line drive. But Huff seems to have emerged magically uninjured by that heart-stopping accident.<\/p>\r\n

http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/05\/30\/sports\/baseball\/30yankees.html?ref=sports<\/a><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0Huff, who had to be carried out of Yankee Stadium on a stretcher after getting beaned May 29, is back playing ball. The pitcher, who never lost consciousness after A-Rod\u2019s hit struck him, didn\u2019t sustain a concussion, or get so much as a headache, from being hit. His CT scan came back negative.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0http:\/\/bats.blogs.nytimes.com\/2010\/05\/30\/day-after-being-hit-in-head-huff-is-feeling-good\/<\/a><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The evening of the day he was hit, Huff tweeted, \u201cEverything is good. Was a little scary, but I\u2019m out of the hospital and with my family.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

http:\/\/www.cleveland.com\/tribe\/index.ssf\/2010\/05\/cleveland_indians_left-hander.html<\/a><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0That\u2019s all pretty remarkable, in that Rodriguez hit the ball with such force that it after it struck Huff\u2019s head it flew and landed roughly 275 feet from home plate.<\/p>\r\n

http:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/mlb\/blog\/big_league_stew\/post\/He-s-OK-folks-Indians-David-Huff-takes-A-Rod-?urn=mlb,244510<\/a><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0Although the Huff case had a happy ending, the scary incident has some sports writer bringing up a question that\u2019s been debated in baseball: Should pitchers be required to wear helmets for protection, like catchers?<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0The knee-jerk reaction might be to say yes, pitchers should don helmets. After all, they face hardballs shooting back at race car-like speeds, more than 90 mph.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0And some players who have been hit in the head like Huff didn\u2019t fare as well as him. The Cleveland Indians seem to be particularly jinxed. In 1920 Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman was killed by a pitched ball. And Indians pitcher Herb Score\u2019s promising career ended when he was hit in the face with a line drive in 1957.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0But how far do you go to eliminate risk in sports? By their very nature, sports involve all kind of risks. You can\u2019t eliminate them\u00a0all.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0And if you believe baseball pitchers should wear helmets, then it follows that you would want to mandate that basketball players wear helmets, as well. In a recent week there were two concussions in just one basketball game.\u00a0Basketball has a much higher frequency of concussions than baseball, except when it comes to batting.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0That said, the biggest risk of severe brain injury in baseball is not a pitcher taking a line drive in the head. It\u2019s two outfielders going after the same ball and then colliding at a very high speed, head on head. Each year, some player dies as the result of such a collision.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0My answer to making baseball safer for pitchers isn\u2019t a helmet, but rather a ban on aluminum bats. A player can swing an aluminum bat faster than a wooden bat, accelerating the speed the ball comes off the bat \u2013 and at the pitcher. That\u2019s why for at least a decade the use of aluminum bats has been a controversial issue.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0Back in 2000, ESPN Magazine did a story headlined \u201cBat Controversy Lingers Over NCAA.\u201d\u00a0 In part, that article described how player stats soared as \u201chot\u201d aluminum bats became more prevalent in the game. In the College World Series championship, from 1994 to 1998 there were 105 runs scored, versus only 33 in 1989 to 1993.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

http:\/\/espn.go.com\/gen\/s\/2000\/0329\/453294.html<\/a><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0Last year a Montana jury awarded a family $850,000 for the death of their son, who was killed in a 2003 baseball game where aluminum bats were used. The jury found that Louisville Slugger didn\u2019t properly warn people about the potential dangers of the bat.<\/p>\r\n

http:\/\/www.roundupnews.com\/sports\/aluminum-bats-still-safe-despite-lawsuit-against-bat-maker-1.861272<\/a><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0But even that jury award didn\u2019t convince people like New Mexico State University baseball coach Ricky Ward that aluminum bats were unsafe. In an interview, Ward said that deaths from batted baseballs were very uncommon.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0Ward suggested that instead of worrying about the aluminum bat, that the specifications on baseballs themselves be changed.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0That\u2019s a new answer to an old problem, but we don\u2019t know if it would work.<\/p>\r\n

\u00a0<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0It hasn\u2019t even been a week since New York Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez hit Cleveland Indians pitcher David Huff in the head with a line drive. But Huff seems to have emerged magically uninjured by that heart-stopping accident. http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/05\/30\/sports\/baseball\/30yankees.html?ref=sports \u00a0Huff, who had to be carried out of Yankee Stadium on a stretcher after getting beaned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,605,608,607,606,604],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brain-injury-attorney","tag-bran-injury-and-baseball","tag-cleveland-indians","tag-david-huff","tag-mlb-and-brain-injury","tag-wisconsin-brain-injury-attorney"],"yoast_head":"\nShould Baseball Pitchers Wear Helmets?: Debate Renewed After Cleveland Pitcher Gets Beaned - Brain Injury Lawyer Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/debate-renewed-after-cleveland-pitcher-david-huff-gets-beaned-should-baseball-pitchers-wear-helmets.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should Baseball Pitchers Wear Helmets?: Debate Renewed After Cleveland Pitcher Gets Beaned - Brain Injury Lawyer Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0It hasn\u2019t even been a week since New York Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez hit Cleveland Indians pitcher David Huff in the head with a line drive. 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