An article appeared late last week in The New York Times about MLB batting helmets and player safety. The occasion for said article is the pending release of a new helmet by Rawlings called the S100 (pictured above).
The structure and materials of the S100 make it the most protective batting helmet in history. It gets its name from the fact that in laboratory testing, it was able to withstand direct hits by fastballs at speeds of 100mph without denting. (Apparently, the model currently used by most major league hitters will dent if hit by a pitch in excess of 70mph.)
However, rather than jumping at the opportunity to upgrade to the newer model, a lot of players are rejecting the S100 outright.
Their main beef? Apparently, it offends their fashion sense.
“No, I am absolutely not wearing that,” Mets right fielder Jeff Francoeur said with a laugh after seeing a prototype, as if he were being asked to put a pumpkin on his head. “I could care less what they say, I’m not wearing it. There’s got to be a way to have a more protective helmet without all that padding. It’s brutal. We’re going to look like a bunch of clowns out there.”
For reference, here is a picture of Jeff Franceour (at right):
Here are some pictures of other Major League Baseball players:
[Ryan Franklin, St. Louis Cardinals]
[Bronson Arroyo, Cincinnati Reds]
[Ryan Howard, Philadelphia Phillies]
[Johnny Damon, pre-New York Yankees]
My point is this: most baseball players are doing a bang-up job of making themselves look like complete dufuses even when a helmet isn’t involved. So to reject the S100 on the basis of style impairment is ridiculous.
(Sidebar: can we all just take a moment to appreciate the fact that the image of Johnny Damon that best illustrated his goon-ishness came from his WEDDING?! OK, let’s continue…)
By no means am I petitioning for some kind of new equipment mandate. I’m a big believer in freedom of choice. Baseball players are grown men, and if they would rather put themselves in greater danger of injury rather than wear a bulkier helmet, I’m fine with that.
However, I am also a big believer in making choices based on evidence. Proof of that belief is all over this blog. And choosing more dangerous headgear based on style when: A) you’re already wearing a league-mandated uniform, B) that uniform already includes a helmet when you’re in the batter’s box, and C) off the field, your sport is unofficially known as the most ridiculously dressed of any professional sport…it just doesn’t hold up.
The more interesting question than any of this Joan Rivers analysis is…how necessary is a more protective helmet for player safety?
This is an especially pertinent time to ask this question because of what happened this weekend. Ian Kinsler got intentionally tagged in the head by a 91mph fastball Saturday. David Wright got beaned in the dome by Giants ace Matt Cain the same day. The velocity on that pitch? 93mph.
Incidentally, Dodgers pitcher Hiroki Kuroda was victimized by a line shot hit back at him while he was on the mound last night, as well. Not that we can realistically expect pitchers to wear batting helmets while they’re pitching, but it’s just another reminder that this is a game that’s based on a hard ball being thrown or hit at speeds in the triple digits.
In all three of the above cases, it appears that the guys involved are going to be OK. Wright was diagnosed with nothing more severe than a concussion. The team placed him on the 15-day DL today with the caveat that he could miss the rest of the season, though I assume that that’s more of a precautionary measure than anything else. Kuroda was released from the hospital with nothing but a mild headache and will apparently make his next start. Ian Kinsler didn’t even come out of the game after he was plunked.
In separate segments, former sluggers Dave Winfield and Joe Morgan both made an interesting claim: the problem isn’t the helmets. It’s that today’s batters “don’t know how to get out of the way of a fastball.”
To me, this seems strange. Getting out of the way of a fastball doesn’t strike me as a highly specialized skill - at least, not in the same sense as landing an airplane or cracking a safe.
However, I immediately put stock in just about anything baseball-related that comes out of Joe Morgan’s mouth. And considering that both he and Winfield played in an era where the batting helmets didn’t even have earflaps, both guys arguably had more incentive for working on their evasive action.
Either Buck Showalter or Peter Gammons also made a companion point: pitchers today simply don’t know how to pitch inside the way the guys in the previous eras did. Brush-backs were much more of an art back then, and batters had more to fear because they didn’t have the elbow guards, hand guards, body armor, etc that allow the current crop of hitters to crowd the plate with near impunity.
My question is whether or not pitcher’s today are throwing (on average) harder than pitchers were in the days of Dave Winfield and Joe Morgan. I was unable to find any real data on this, although - full disclosure - I didn’t exactly spend my whole day trying to hunt it down. I wasn’t even able to find when radar guns started being used in major league baseball, but I can now tell you that the first use of the machine was in 1954 by an Illinois State Highway patrolman. And man, would I have loved to see the reaction of the guy who got pulled over as a result of this pioneering use of technology.
Anyway, my suspicion is that there is a velocity difference, and that even if it’s only a few mph, that extra heat could be the difference between a batter getting completely clear of a fastball and getting hit, or even between turning a direct hit into a glancing blow.
One of the main arguments for the helmet currently favored by the pros is that in almost all cases, players still react enough to make sure that the ball isn’t striking them dead-on. Therefore, it’s completely irrelevant that the helmet will “fail” if hit squarely with a 71mph ball.
So sadly, the upshot of all of this is that I don’t know really know whether older ballplayers were more dexterous, older pitchers had better control on the inner half of the plate, or everyone’s just spewing garbage. Which, to be honest, really disappoints me.
Ironically, though, the last player quoted in the NYT article was fully in favor of the new helmet. That player? David Wright.
“If it provides more protection, then I’m all for it,” said Mets third baseman David Wright… “I’m not worried about style or looking good out there. I’m worried about keeping my melon protected.”
As this picture of Wright confirms, he’s serious about that second to last sentence.
-T
