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Injuries to Pitchers Photo Gallery
Click on any image below to see photos in full size and to start Photo Gallery:
Today we welcome the first essay from Mark Kolier. Mark has selected a topic that he feels very strongly about: the danger pitchers face from comebackers to the mound. I agree with Mark that MLB needs to do something – and soon – before there’s another on-field tragedy. In the featured photo, we see Herb Score on the ground after being struck in 1957. In the photo gallery, I put together a collection of more recent photos that vividly reveal the scope of the problem. We thank Mark for bringing this to the attention of our readers. -GL
Protecting Pitchers From Line Drives
The sound of the crack of the bat. It’s a sound like no other in sports. When winter turns to spring it’s one of the harbingers of the summer game in the United States and wherever baseball is played around the world! Yet sometimes the crack of the bat can result in a terrible even catastrophic injury to the originator of the play – the pitcher. Statistically, there is a less than 0.001 percent chance a pitcher will be hit. However, most fans, most PEOPLE, are understandably horrified when they see, hear, or learn about a pitcher being struck in the head by a line drive. And while it is rare it DOES happen.
Ray Chapman: Baseball’s only on-field fatality
Only one major league player has ever died from injuries sustained during a contest. It happened in 1920 (which if you are interested is one of the most interesting and amazing seasons in baseball history), when Yankees’ pitcher Carl Mays hit Cleveland’s star shortstop Ray Chapman on the side of the head with a pitch while he led off the fifth inning. This was prior to the use of batting
helmets which were only first used in MLB in 1941. Batting helmets were not made mandatory in MLB until 1971, which was only two years prior to the introduction of the designated hitter and two years after the onset of divisional play.
Pitchers both professional and amateur have been hit with line drives since baseball began. It’s safe to say that at the major league level, exit velocity off the bat of hitters has never been consistently higher. There are still many people around today who can tell you about the line drive that altered the career of Cleveland’s 1955 Rookie-of-the Year Herb Score in May of 1957. Score survived the shot off the bat of the Yankee’s Gil McDougald, (what is it with Cleveland and the Yankees?) but was never the same pitcher again.
What will it take?
Near Hall-of-Famer Jim Kaat was struck in 1962 and for him pitching batting practice was never the same although he claims to not have thought about it during the games he pitched. Over the past 25 years names like Bryce Florie, Chris Young (new Texas Ranger GM), Joe Martinez, Juan Nicasio, Brandon McCarthy, JA Happ, Aroldis Chapman, Archie Bradley, Matt Shoemaker and Dustin May all have been seriously injured by batted balls whether in a spring training or regular season game. Just last season on July 4, 2020, then-Yankee pitcher Masahiro Tanaka was felled by a line drive in batting practice off the bat of Giancarlo Stanton. Knowing how hard Stanton hits the ball is cringe-worthy. All returned to pitch again at the major league level.
My son Gordon and I host a podcast Almost Cooperstown and we were fortunate enough (thanks Jason Berge!), to get in contact with and have on our podcast, former MLB pitcher Willie Blair. On May 5, 1997 as a Detroit Tiger, Blair was working on a 4-hit shoutout with two outs in the 6th inning, a 107 MPH line drive off the bat of Julio Franco struck Blair in the side of the head and broke his jaw. Willie lay motionless on the field for more than five minutes. Doctors told him that had the ball hit a fraction of an inch from where it did, he could have died. Willie told us that in the audience at that game in Cleveland doing the radio broadcast was none other than….Herb Score! Score admitted to Willie later that it brought back memories of his own incident. Willie Blair took the mound again that season about a month later and pitched another four years in the majors.
So, what’s it going to take for MLB and baseball as a whole to do something to try to stop what seems inevitable? A pitcher being maimed or killed by a line drive would definitely get MLB’s attention. Yet as we discussed with Willie, isn’t waiting until something happens a terrible way to manage this issue? What can be done? Protective headgear for pitchers has been tried even at the MLB level with a funny looking cap most recently sported by Alex Torres who wore it while pitching for
the Mets. It turns out that Willie Blair was the bullpen coach while both he and Torres were with the Padres and Willie knows and respects Alex Torres for who he is, why he wore a protective cap, and for withstanding the fallout Torres took from wearing it because it looks, and feels, well, weird.
Pitching at any level is difficult, and the act of throwing a ball is deemed by many experts as unnatural in and of itself. Wearing a slightly heavier protective cap either as a cap or on top of the cap will feel different to the pitcher and that’s unlikely to be a good thing. Slight alterations in a delivery to accommodate it (whether consciously or not) can result in an arm or other injury. And at present it looks odd, is a source of ribbing and even embarrassment from the other players, not to mention fans.
Possible solutions?
ESPN producer Willie Weinbaum has covered this subject several times and feels similarly that SOMETHING has to be done. Those of us around long enough remember that until 1979 NHL players were not required to wear a helmet. That year players entering the league were mandated to wear helmets. These young players had been wearing helmets in the Juniors for their entire careers, so it was not a big deal. That may be a path to how MLB can help make change happen. If Little League and Cal Ripken League require special protective headgear for pitchers those kids will grow up to be professionals that will not need to make an adjustment. MLB could subsidize this effort as a show of recognition that it is truly concerned for the care and safety of baseball players and in this case baseball pitchers.
What about the technology? It’s gotten better and several companies have developed products and prototypes that just need to be used in order to find the right balance of safety and comfort. If it were to be started tomorrow it could still be 15 years before pitchers might regularly wear something to protect their heads while on the field. Gordon made the very good point that in dealing with the problem before something happens, players will have a much greater say in what, how, and when protective pitcher headgear is implemented and ultimately mandated even at the major league level.
Related to the subject, this coming season a young pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals Daniel Ponce de Leon (how much do we love his name!), is competing for a starting spot. His story called ‘One Line Drive’ of nearly dying in 2014 from a line drive to the head while in the minor leagues off the bat of now major leaguer Victor Caratini, is one of faith and perseverance.
Can we all agree that the solution to lowering the risk of severe injuries to pitchers is not just to wait for something catastrophic to happen?
Mark Kolier
