Copyright 2000, 2006, 2007, 2008 by John T. Reed
Baseball is by far the most dangerous of the popular youth sports. Amazingly, hardly anyone seems aware of this. Millions of parents who refuse to let their child play youth football, one of the safest youth sports, blithely send them off to baseball without a thought about safety. What's worse is the injuries youth baseball players suffer are almost all easily preventable. For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see my book, Youth Baseball Coaching.
Sports that have a dangerous image, like youth football and youth hockey, have adopted virtually every safety recommendation made by the pertinent medical and safety groups. But youth-baseball organizations have almost completely ignored the safety recommendations pertinent to their sport. One organization, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, even went so far as to issue a position statement (May 1991) noting that football and hockey adopted recommended safety equipment and drastically reduced injuries, while baseball has ignored the recommendations and continues to have a high injury rate as a result.
Prevent Blindness America (formerly The National Society to Prevent Blindness) characterizes baseball as a
"Moderate-to-high-risk sport," Those are sports that "...involve use of a bat or stick, high-speed ball, close aggressive play (body contact), or a combination of these factors."
Rita Glassman of the National Youth Sports Safety Foundation (formerly the National Youth Sports Foundation for the Prevention of Athletic Injuries) says:
"Baseball has the leading number of fatalities and the least amount of safety equipment."
Here are the risks, incidence of the injury in question, the recommended safety measures, who says so, and the national leagues' policies:
Risk | Incidence | Safety recommendations | Who says so? | Policies of the various national leagues |
---|---|---|---|---|
Death from intracranial (brain) bleeding or ventricular fibrillation or asystole (stops heart) caused by bat (rare) or ball (the usual cause) impact on upper body or collision with player or obstacle | 5/year or 1 per million players per season (Consumer Product Safety Commission figures) | Eliminate on-deck circle | American Academy of Pediatrics references on baseball safety | Little League Baseball, Inc. abolished the on-deck circle for 12 and under players. As far as I know, no other national organization has done so. |
Use only balls that meet NOCSAE standard (Worth Reduced-Injury-Factor balls and Kenko balls) | Tufts University study published in the 6/18/98 New England Journal of Medicine and editorial in same issue
Children in Japan use only balls that do or would meet this standard |
American Amateur Baseball Congress requires NOCSAE balls for 12 and under. As far as I know no other organization does. | ||
Oral, facial, eye, and head injuries
Oral, facial, eye, and head injuries Oral, facial, eye, and head injuries |
170,000 baseball related head and facial injuries in 1980 or 75 per 1,000 players per season (Consumer Product Safety Commission figures)
CPSC Publication #329 Baseball Safety "Youth baseball and softball now lead all sports in the number of oral, facial, eye, and head injuries." (American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry) |
Use only helmets with face guards that meet NOCSAE standards (manufactured by Schutt and Face Guard, Inc. and emasksales.com) | National Safety Council in 1986 edition of Family Safety and Health
American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry 5/91 position statement, 10/95 & 12/97 press releases, and Q&A Dr. John B. Jeffers head of Emergency Services at Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, PA |
Dixie Youth Baseball requires face-mask batting helmets. As far as I know, no other national organization does. |
Use only helmets that meet the 90 miles per hour NOCSAE standard | I am not aware of any national organization that requires 90-mph helmets at any level. | |||
Use only helmets that fit snugly; no soft baseball caps worn under the helmet | NOCSAE and instructions printed on helmets | Inspect at games to see who is not complying.
I would be surprised if any league complies with these rules. |
||
Use only helmets that do not have deteriorated interior padding | ||||
Eye injuries
Eye injuries Eye injuries |
35,000 per year, 6,000 severe enough to require hospital treatment (1985 Consumer Product Safety Commission figures)
Protective eyeware prevents about 90% of sports eye injuries |
Use only helmets with face guards that meet Standard F910 of the American Society for Testing and Materials standards or NOCSAE standard [manufactured by Schutt and Face Guard, Inc. and emasksales.com (CPSC award to Face Guard, Inc.)] | American Academy of Ophthalmology 10/8/92 news release
Consumer Product Safety Commission 6/4/96 news release Physician and Sports Medicine Journal Prevent Blindness America 1984 statement American Academy of Pediatrics 4/94 policy statement and table of sports and recommended eye protection |
Dixie Youth Baseball requires face-mask batting helmets. As far as I know, no other national organization does.
Many public batting cages now require face-mask batting helmets. Such businesses are easy to sue. Youth leagues apparently figure it's hard to sue them, so they will continue to ignore the injuries. |
Wear protective goggles that meet the American Society for Testing and Materials Standard F803 when fielding | American Academy of Pediatrics for functionally one-eyed or previously eye-injured
Prevent Blindness America six documents Dr. John B. Jeffers head of Emergency Services at Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, PA Protective Eyeware Council |
No national youth baseball organization requires protective goggles. They are now generally required at adult squash, handball, and racquet-ball courts. ASTM Standard F803 applies to both baseball and sports like squash, handball, and racquet-ball. Prevent Blindness America also puts baseball in the same category with the adult sports that require goggles. | ||
Wear only molded polycarbonate sports frames that meet standard American Society for Testing and Materials F803 (e.g., Rec Specs), never street frames or workplace safety glasses (ANSI standard Z87) | Prevent Blindness America
Dr. John B. Jeffers head of Emergency Services at Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, PA Protective Eyeware Council American Academy of Ophthalmology 4/1/99 news release, M.D. tips, April tips |
As far as I know, no national youth baseball organization prohibits the wearing of street frames while playing baseball. One Toms River, NJ player at the 1999 Little League World Series was wearing wire-rimmed glasses while playing! | ||
Use only balls that meet NOCSAE standard (Worth Reduced-Injury-Factor balls and Kenko balls) | Archives of Ophthalmology 3/99 study | Only the American Amateur Baseball Congress requires NOCSAE balls (12 and under). | ||
Teeth injuries | All players should wear custom-fitted mouthguard that meets standard ASTM F697-80 (1992) (available from your local dentist) | American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry 5/91 position statement
American Dental Association 6/99 news release, recommendation and photo of mouthguard Academy for Sports Dentistry 12/6/98 position statement and ASD Newsletter Vol. 14, #3, pg 7-8, Jan. 1999 |
No national youth baseball organization requires mouthguards. | |
Use only balls that meet NOCSAE standard (Worth Reduced-Injury-Factor balls and Kenko balls) | Study by Dr. Voight Hodgson found that RIF balls reduced fractures. Head and Neck Injuries in Sports published by ASTM in 1994. | Only the American Amateur Baseball Congress requires NOCSAE balls (12 and under). | ||
Miscellaneous injuries | No head-first sliding | American Academy of Pediatrics | Little League Baseball, Inc. prohibits head-first sliding for 12 and under. | |
Breakaway bases [Manufactured by Rogers Sports Corp. (CPSC award)] Here is an e-mail I got from Rogers:
Dear John, |
American Academy of Pediatrics and Consumer Product Safety Commission | I know of no national youth-baseball organization that requires these bases other than Little League Baseball who reportedly did that in recent years. |
As you can see, there are some empty boxes in the above grid. If anyone can provide me with information to fill those boxes, or to correct mistakes or omissions, I would appreciate it.
Here is a list of the major national youth baseball organizations:
Amateur American Baseball Congress
American Legion Baseball
Babe Ruth Baseball
Dixie Youth Baseball
Little League Baseball, Inc.
Pony Baseball
Youth baseball is also played under the auspices of many other organizations including local park and recreation departments. In general, they have the same rules pertaining to safety, or lack of rules, as the national organizations.
I asked the various youth-baseball organizations to comment about what I said about them in my book Youth Baseball Coaching. The response from each was total silence.
In general, the younger the players, the more likely the league is to adopt recommended safety devices. It is common for tee-ball leagues to use NOCSAE balls even when not required by national league rules. One year my local little league had child pitchers wear batting helmets at the tee ball level. (I know of no medical or safety group that recommends that, but it makes sense.) As you can see in the table above, a number of rules apply to the 12-and-under age group in certain leagues. In some cases, the medical and safety groups themselves have put such age limits in their recommendations.
Is there a medical basis for such differentiation between age groups? A CPSC study said 75% of baseball injuries occur in the 10 to 14 age group, which suggests that a cutoff of 12 is too low. There is a lower incidence of injuries at the older age levels because less athletic kids have dropped out and the susceptibility to chest impact fatalities is apparently lower. But there seems to be no reason not to prevent even that lower rate of injury. I wore all the recommended safety equipment as an adult player. I interviewed a Maine dentist who also plays adult baseball. He, too, wears the recommended safety equipment. I suspect the main reason for not recommending that these safety rules and equipment apply to all youth levels (up to age 18) is the fact that teenage boys, being the prime group suffering from concern about their manhood, will complain extremely loudly if required to use safety equipment, or abide by safety rules, which do not apply to college or pro players. Teenage complaining should not be a factor either at the medical and safety organizations or at the leagues. Not applying safety requirements to certain age groups should only be done when scientific testing proves that the risk is almost nonexistent at those age levels. The statistics that say there is a lower injury rate at the teenage level are cold comfort if you or your child is the one who was killed or maimed.
My book, Youth Baseball Coaching, contains a number of quotes from various observers and participants as to why youth-baseball organizations have long ignored, and continue to ignore, the almost unanimous safety recommendations of the pertinent medical and safety organizations.
The fathers fear that if they advocate new safety equipment they will not be
Parents and children also fear ridicule from other children and adults.
These fears are well founded. After I unilaterally had my teams and sons comply with the recommended safety measures, I stopped getting manager jobs and was assigned to be the assistant to guys with no experience or less experience. My oldest son never made Little League majors or even all-stars in the minor leagues, even though he was a record-setting swimmer, high-school track star, and star football player. As a high school senior, he was the starting tailback on the only undefeated team in his school's 44-year history. His team was North Coast Section champion and ranked second in the state of California. He was recruited by Ivy League football coaches at Columbia, Dartmouth, and Yale, as well as numerous Division III colleges. He is now a rising sophomore at Columbia University and the Number 2 tailback on their varsity football team. I doubt there is any other Ivy League tailback who did not make majors in his Little League.
Many of my son's youth-baseball teammates who had lower batting averages, stolen bases, on-base averages, etc. were chosen for majors or minor-league all-star teams. Just before my son was cut by his JV high-school baseball coach, my son overheard him say, "I'm not going to have anyone on my team wearing that stupid face-mask batting helmet." Youth-baseball teammates of my son who batted several slots behind his clean-up position (I was not his coach that year) made the same high-school team.
Both I and my players and sons were routinely taunted by opposing players, coaches, and parents because of our face-mask batting helmets. The typical clever comment was, "What position do you play? Linebacker?" Thinking we were extra scared, pitchers threw at our heads more.
Major Leaguers whose careers were ended or greatly hurt by preventable injuries | ||
---|---|---|
Player | Injury | Recommended equipment that probably would have prevented or minimized injury |
Tony Conigliaro | Hit in the face by Jack Hamilton pitch on 8/18/67 | Face-mask batting helmet that meets NOCSAE standards at 90 miles per hour |
Mickey Cochrane | Hit by career-ending Bump Hadley bean ball in 1937. Fractured his skull in three places. Ten days in the hospital. He almost died. | |
Ray Chapman | Killed by pitch thrown at head by known bean-baller Carl May on 8/16/20 | |
Joe Medwick | Knocked unconscious by Bob Bowman pitch in 1940 | |
Doug Griffin | Beaned by Nolan Ryan pitch, hospitalized, and missed 51 games | |
Dickie Thon | Hit in temple by Mike Torres pitch | |
Charlie Manuel | Hit in face by Jerry Reuss pitch in 1967 and again in Japanese baseball | |
Matt Keough | Hit in the head by spring training line drive while sitting in dugout | RIF-10 ball or protective fencing in front of dugout |
Dizzy Dean | Line drive off his toe in the 1937 All-Star Game caused him to change his mechanics and he blew out his arm as a result. | RIF-10 ball |
Herb Score | Pitcher hit in the eye by a line drive off the bat of Gil McDougald in 1957 | Protective goggles, RIF-10 ball might have helped |
Jim Kaat | Won 16 consecutive Golden Gloves as a pitcher, but had several teeth knocked out by a one-hopper | Mouthguard, RIF-10 ball might have helped |
Bryce Florie | Red Sox pitcher was hit in the eye by a 100-mph line drive on 9/8/00. Florie had 20/400 visionlegally blind without his contact lensesbefore the injury. He was wearing contacts when hit. The ball shattered the bones around his eye, knocked him unconscious, and broke his nose. A titanium plate was neded to replace the facial bones. When Sports Illustrated wrote a long article about the injury in the 11/27/2000 issue, he still had blood behind his retina, a condition which needs to correct itself for recovery. He is attempting a comeback. Note that I described this type of injury in great detail in Youth Baseball Coaching, which came out seven months before Florie got hit. | Protective goggles, RIF-10 ball might have helped |
Billy Martin | Beaned by Tex Clevenger. Read his autobiograhpy for complete details on how it effected him. He attributes his decision to break pitcher Jim Brewer's jaw to his being beaned. His stats declined. |
Face-mask batting helmet that meets NOCSAE standards at 90 miles per hour |
Al Cowens | Beaned by Ed Farmer in 1979. Upon returned charged Ed Farmer on the mound. Cowens numbers never the same. | Face-mask batting helmet that meets NOCSAE standards at 90 miles per hour |
Jimmy Piersall | Co-author of the book Fear Strikes Out, which was a major motion picture by Paramount in 1957. Film features a scene in which Piersall is terrorized as a boy by his father who throws ever faster balls at him to catch. | All recommended safety equipment |
If you know of any other Major Leaguers who were injured in games because of lack of recommended protective equipment, please send me an email about them so I can add them to this list. Thanks. Click here to see a letter a reader sent me on this subject. |
The 3/27/00 Sports Illustrated had an article about C405 aluminum bats causing a higher rate of serious injuries to pitchers in college baseball. Arizona State University pitcher Ryan Mills got his jaw broken. University of Houston pitcher Danny Crawford lost five teeth. Cal State-Northridge pitcher Andrew Sanchez's skull was fractured. The basic message of the article was that injuries increased when the new bat was allowed in 1996. NCAA was going to change the standard to a safer one, but stopped when they were sued by Easton. A couple of points:
Requiring college pitchers to wear helmets probably seems overly cautious. That consensus will end with the first fatality. I suspect NCAA should has more to fear from the suit by the parents of that first dead college pitcher than from any suit by Easton.
Big stars usually have a favorite charity. I have always suspected they do it for the cynical reason of increasing popularity in order to get endorsement contracts and post-playing-career broadcasting gigs. How about a cause that directly saves children from being injured? You don't even have to make any extra public appearances. Just set a safe example in your games.
If no active Major Leaguer has the guts to follow Chris Sabo's example, because he is afraid of losing playing time or endorsement income or of being ridiculed, how about some retired players? Joe Garagiola has set a fabulous example with his crusade against chewing tobacco (National Spit Tobacco Education Program, 312-836-9900).
How about some former Major Leaguer who was injured crusading for protective equipment that would have prevented his and other injuries? Surely there must be many former pros whose children, nephews or nieces, cousins, or grandchildren were seriously injured while playing baseball or softball. It doesn't even have to be the relative of an injured person. It could just be a former Major Leaguer with enough common sense to recognize the danger without a personal tragedy. Why can't one or more of them come forward, like former NFL linebacker Nick Buoniconti did when his son was paralyzed by a spinal injury in football (The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis and The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis), and lend their credibility to this cause? The Buoniconti Fund faces a daunting task---curing paralysis. In contrast, wiping out baseball eye, teeth, and facial injuries is a piece of cake. It can literally be done in one year if someone with the power only has the will.
Pros adopt base coach helmet rule following Coolbaugh death; not amateurs
On 7/22/07, Tulsa Drillers first-base coach Mike Coolbaugh, a former Major Lague player died after being hit in the head by a four ball line drive during a Texas League game. To their belated credit, Major Leaggue Baseball subsequently adopted a rule that base coaches have to wear helmets in the majors and minors. Predictably, no amateur league, that is high school and college, followed suit. See the story at http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/baseball/2008-04-24-coaches-helmets_N.htm.
Youth leagues typically require child base coaches to wear helmets, but not adults. Indeed, youth leagues permit adult baseball coaches to serve as base coaches, but they provide no helmets even for optional use by the coaches. Such coaches would have to, and should, purchase helmets at their own expense. But they do not because they are insecure about their manhood and would rather risk death or serious injury than be made fun of or snickered at by their fellow adults. The same motivation applies to the high school and college baseball coaches.
Because we have generally not had mandatory face-mask batting helmets, goggles, mouthguards, and safety balls in baseball, the recommendations seem excessive and unnecessary to many. It got back to me that the president of our local Little League said of my efforts, Theyre trying to turn our kids into a bunch of wussies.
Two points:
football helmets football face masks football mouthguards hockey mouthguards catchers' and umpires' masks catchers' and umpires' shin guards umpires' steel-toed shoes high-jump and pole-vault landing pads soccer shin guards boxing helmets boxing mouthguards lacrosse face-mask helmets |
catchers' and umpires' chest protectors catchers' and umpires' throat protectors protective cups football shoulder pads hockey goalie masks hockey eye shields racquet-ball, squash, and hand-ball protective goggles bicycle helmets race car seat belts horseback riding helmets wrestling helmets |
In each and every case, those who ridiculed early advocates of these items are now regarded as macho idiots. There can be no question that the currently recommended baseball safety equipment will eventually be required. The only question is how long the various opponents are going to be on the wrong side of this issue—and how many children they will kill or maim in the interim.
According to Jill Rosen of the Baltimore Sun, the Maryland general assembly was considering requiring face masks and goggles in 2006, although they seemed to think it would die in committee.
The politicians opposed to it had the usual idiotic, mindless arguments:
Let's be careful out there,
John T. Reed