by Tumblebug » Wed Nov 11, 2009 4:26 pm
The sky is falling, everybody run! The sky is falling . . .
Several issues have been raised here and I think most of them deserve consideration.
While the incident is truly tragic, nobody is actually at fault here. This is a case where hard facts and sympathy made a jury a little crazy. They wanted to help the family, but did not think anything was wrong with the bat. These concepts are not mutually exclusive. For example, cigarettes are not “defective” in that they perform properly, but they are “dangerous” in that they cause numerous health problems, illness and death. By the same token, the bats perform to all effective standards; however, they can be dangerous.
The problem with the ruling is that all participants in baseball games know of the inherent dangers and “assume the risk” of injury. In order to obviate this problem, we will have to include a short warning label on Anderson bats – something like: “Balls struck by this bat can reach speeds that may cause injury to players and spectators. Protective gear and caution should be used.”
If challenged I think this case will be overturned. The bat starts and stays within the rules for the life of the product. All of the risks are known.
With that said, the danger here is the “Chicken Little” effect when in fact diamond sports are, by comparison, very safe. Soccer, tennis and cheerleading each produce more injuries each year than both Baseball and Softball combined. The advent of aluminum bats did not change that.
Injury data has been kept on record at Little League International since the early 1960s. Since that time, there have been eight fatalities in the Little League program as a result of a batted ball. Six of those fatalities have come from wood bats and two from non-wood bats.
At present, injury data in all divisions of Little League Baseball and Softball shows there has been a 69 percent decrease in reported injuries to pitchers as a result of batted balls since 1992. This is, in part, a result of the BPF 1.15 requirement.
Statistically, you are fifty times more likely to sustain serious injury in the drive to the park than in any baseball or softball activity while you are there.
Aluminum bats were regulated out of play in New York high school play and the injury rate from batted balls did not drop and, in fact, remained constant while the total injury rate rose due to injuries sustained from broken wood bats. It should be noted that the introduction of the aluminum bat was originally heralded as a safety improvement to the game.
A 2007 study from the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research shows that there have been only 15 catastrophic batted ball injuries to pitchers out of more than 9,500,000 high school and college participants since 1982.
There is not a safety problem in baseball or softball. The “problem” that exists today is the same “problem” that existed in 1900. Appropriate safety equipment would solve it and allow the game to get faster in the same way the athletes and the training have gotten better.
The issue is an emotional one but the fact remains that there really isn’t much danger. I have kids too. They all play baseball. They also pitch.
Or are you wasting your money?
