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So you produced 8 examples of pitchers being hit, although most were fine. I would like to know how many pitchers suffered serious injury in the last 50 or 100 years as the result of balls hit back at them. The question I will ask and continue to ask is whether or not that risk is worthy of changing the game.
I do think there is an overreaction, and if there was such a big safety risk or risk to players' careers, don't you think the players union would be insisting on helmets or some kind of solution. Do you hear them making any noise? When the rule came out regarding coaches wearing helmets, most were against it. If the risk was so high, wouldn't they be lobbying for it and cheering it?
The person advancing the slipperly slope argument may be relied upon to cite the most absurd or extreme versions of whatever is being considered.
But that has already been done, citing a pitcher being hit in the head by a line drive, the most absurd or extreme version of what can be the consequence of the absence of protective gear. In the 50s, two pitchers (Herb Score and Bubba Church) had their careers ended by line drives that hit them in the face, where a helmet would have been of no utility. Your own slippery slope is that pitchers should wear masks, too, and then to ask what can be wrong with protective gear.
There are four grown men standing around fist base. A coach, a first baseman, a runner and an umpire, all four of them paying attention to the game. By what logic have you established that only two of them need to wear a mandatory helmet for their safety? Except that in some two million professional baseball games in the past century, involving 100-million players, coaches and umpires, one batter and one coach have been killed being hit in the head, but so far, no first basemen nor umpires have. Slippery slope fallacy.
By the way, nobody here has suggested banning protective helmets as a pitcher's individual choice, and have only argued that immediate mandatory helmets is an overreaction. Pitchers can wear helmets if they want to, and always could, and nobody objects to that freedom. Remember that batting helmets were voluntary in MLB for a decade or so, and only became mandatory after a large enough number of players elected to use them and became comfortable with them. Even then it was grandfathered, and Bob Montgomery continued to bat without a helmet 26 years after the Pirates made it a team policy, and 42 years after the first MLB player wore one. In that interval, there was not a single incident of a head injury by a player not wearing one.
The same people demanding batting helmets for 6-year-olds playing Tee Ball are letting their kids go out for high school football, which sports doctors describe as being the equivalent of a car crash every Friday night, despite protective gear. You're worried about a MLB pitcher getting hit in the head every few decades, while 10% of all high school football players will suffer a concussion between now an Christmas:
So you produced 8 examples of pitchers being hit, although most were fine. I would like to know how many pitchers suffered serious injury in the last 50 or 100 years as the result of balls hit back at them. The question I will ask and continue to ask is whether or not that risk is worthy of changing the game.
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You are not explaining why having pitching helmets is such a horrible thing that it justifies the ongoing risk of injuries from comebackers.
All that is required to justify precautionary measures for anything is the establishment that there is risk. If there is some measure that may be taken that decreases the consequences of that risk, then the only reason not to take it would be that it comes with such a massive inconvenience or cost that it constitutes over protection for what is actually a remote possibility.
Does that describe pitching helmets? Beyond the ability of the game to afford? Pitching helmets would cause some stars to quit rather than wear them, or would cause fans to stay away who otherwise would attend? How precisely will pitching helmets be wrecking the game?
But that has already been done, citing a pitcher being hit in the head by a line drive, the most absurd or extreme version of what can be the consequence of the absence of protective gear. In the 50s, two pitchers (Herb Score and Bubba Church) had their careers ended by line drives that hit them in the face, where a helmet would have been of no utility. Your own slippery slope is that pitchers should wear masks, too, and then to ask what can be wrong with protective gear.
I made no such arguments, did I?
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There are four grown men standing around fist base. A coach, a first baseman, a runner and an umpire, all four of them paying attention to the game. By what logic have you established that only two of them need to wear a mandatory helmet for their safety? Except that in some two million professional baseball games in the past century, involving 100-million players, coaches and umpires, one batter and one coach have been killed being hit in the head, but so far, no first basemen nor umpires have. Slippery slope fallacy.
I made no such argument, did I?
I ask you the same question I did neill....in what manner will pitcher helmets ruin the game to such a severe degree that the risk of injuries is worth it in order to avoid such a calamity?
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The same people demanding batting helmets for 6-year-olds playing Tee Ball are letting their kids go out for high school football, which sports doctors describe as being the equivalent of a car crash every Friday night, despite protective gear. You're worried about a MLB pitcher getting hit in the head every few decades, while 10% of all high school football players will suffer a concussion between now an Christmas
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I'm not one of those people, am I? I have never addressed the issue of high school football safety, yet here you are making me out to be someone who is for safety in baseball while indifferent about the same in football.
What goes on inside that mind of yours anyway that you see these things which do not actually exist?
Find a strawman to whom to assign arguments which you wish to refute and try and limit your comments to me to things I have actually written.
Grandstander, you yourself have cited the folly of the slippery slope. Exactly where is the line to be drawn, defending our athletes against that slippery precipice of protection against the rarest of hazards? Isn't it reasonable to let those at risk make their voluntary judgment about what protection they found useful, and if a piece of protection became widespread, measures could then be taken to encourage it, if not mandate it?
Is it required by MLB rules for a catcher to wear a mask, shin guards, a cup (who checks?)? Is it required for batters to wear a guard to protect their lower extremities from their own foul balls? These have all become not just commonplace, but universal, through the obvious and demonstrated utility of the paraphernalia, with no mandate required.. And in spite of the elaborate, state of the art head protection worn by catchers, most of them experience multiple concussions during their career. A catcher can take of the mask to catch foul balls, but a batter cannot take off the helmet to run the bases. Logic seems very elusive.
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Originally Posted by filihok
I posted eight videos of pitchers being hit in the head in the last 3 years. I'd guess that wasn't close to all of them.
How many of those resulted in injuries that were more serious than the usual hazards of playing the game? How many of those pitchers had to go on the DL, or how many were diagnosed with a concussion? At least one of them, according to the list of video titles, even stayed in the game. In that same space of time, how many pitchers have been hit on other parts of the body, forcing them to leave the game, and how do you propose to protect them against those injuries? There are no dates on the videos, so could you supply us with a list of how long each of those pitchers was unable to pitch after the injury?
If there have been eight of them (at least) in the past three years, why does the McCarthy incident suddenly unleash a deluge of demands for pitchers to wear helmets?
Grandstander, you yourself have cited the folly of the slippery slope. Exactly where is the line to be drawn, defending our athletes against that slippery precipice of protection against the rarest of hazards? ?
Yes, but I pointed out someone employing the argument, I did not employ it myself.
Again, may I please get an answer to my question? In what manner would introducing pitching helmets degrade the game to the point where we will embrace possible injuries rather than live with such a horror?
I'll start it for you.
"Pitching helmets are a bad idea because....."
"They aren't needed" is not an acceptable argument in light of the recent injury to Brandon McCarthy, clearly he would have benefited.
You are not explaining why having pitching helmets is such a horrible thing that it justifies the ongoing risk of injuries from comebackers.
I'd like to jump in here and offer my opinion. You ask why having pitching helmets is a horrible thing, and in general I don't think it is. However, I've done a little bit of pitching and I've watched a ton of baseball over the years and I've got to think that having an actual helmet something like a batting helmet would be extremely distracting for a player whose profession depends on such concentration that a pitched ball a couple inches away from its intended target is a failure.
I think it's Ok to urge pitchers to wear some kind of head protection such as a helmet, but to mandate it would be wrong. At that point it's up to the individual pitcher whether they would like to utilize head protection or not. Just my 2 cents.
I've got to think that having an actual helmet something like a batting helmet would be extremely distracting for a player whose profession depends on such concentration that a pitched ball a couple inches away from its intended target is a failure.
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Let us say that such a problem is overcome, science crafts a pitching helmet which is protective but does not restrict a pitcher's ability to see or concentrate. Don't you suspect that such a thing would be possible?
I'd like to jump in here and offer my opinion. You ask why having pitching helmets is a horrible thing, and in general I don't think it is. However, I've done a little bit of pitching and I've watched a ton of baseball over the years and I've got to think that having an actual helmet something like a batting helmet would be extremely distracting for a player whose profession depends on such concentration that a pitched ball a couple inches away from its intended target is a failure.
I think it's Ok to urge pitchers to wear some kind of head protection such as a helmet, but to mandate it would be wrong. At that point it's up to the individual pitcher whether they would like to utilize head protection or not. Just my 2 cents.
That, and we'd be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Baseball is a summer game, played in very hot weather. To mandate that a pitcher, whose position is already very demanding (maybe the most demanding in the sport), now wear a piece of equipment that will potentially be heavier, block vision or sound, and most definitely be hotter, because of a few close calls, just seems to me like an overreaction and a move away from the spirit of the sport.
Again...do we see the players or union clamoring for a change? Nope. Are they lobbying for this and making the case that their "workplace" isn't currently safe? Nope. They don't want to wear a helmet in 100 degree weather in Texas, or 90 degree weather anywhere else. They don't want to add the weight or mechanics changing distraction.
Why don't we ask the pitchers what they want? If they want it, then I'm all for it, but my sense is that just like the coaches, most pitchers neither want helmets nor need them. You can all disagree with me, but you won't change my mind one iota.
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