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I should have said in my last post that I don’t think death or serious injury is all that much of a concern, but I’m not a fan of the philosophy that an injury needs to happen before a change or discussion of change is warranted. I was making that point more than anything.</p>
<p>Here’s that evidence, though:</p>
<p>From the American Academy of Pediatrics:
The potential for catastrophic injury resulting from direct contact with a bat, baseball, or softball exists. Deaths have occurred from impact to the head resulting in intracranial bleeding and from blunt chest impact, probably causing ventricular fibrillation or asystole (commotio cordis).1 Children 5 to 15 years of age seem to be uniquely vulnerable to blunt chest impact because their thoraces may be more elastic and more easily compressed.2 Statistics compiled by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission1 indicate that there were 88 baseball-related deaths to children in this age group between 1973 and 1995, an average of about 4 per year. This average has not changed since 1973. Of these, 43% were from direct-ball impact with the chest (commotio cordis); 24% were from direct-ball contact with the head; 15% were from impacts from bats; 10% were from direct contact with a ball impacting the neck, ears, or throat; and in 8%, the mechanism of injury was unknown.</p>
<p>Direct contact by the ball is the most frequent cause of death and serious injury in baseball.
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<p>From NY Times:
Dr. Vincent J. Eletto, the attending emergency room physician at Maimonides, said that the ball striking Michael’s chest sent powerful shock waves into his heart. This jolted the heart into exceptionally irregular arrythmia, resulting in a heartbeat of perhaps 300 beats a minute compared with the normal 64. “In essence, the child had a heart attack,” Dr. Eletto said.
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<p>From the Institute for Preventative Sports Medicine:
A Consumer Products Safety Commission report found that between 1973 and 1983, 12 children died after being hit in the head with a baseball . Another 21 died after being hit in the chest. (A previous Institute study using crash dummies found that chest protectors and softer baseballs essentially provide no protection against death from chest impact. Clin Jrnl of Sports Medicine2:172-179,1992.)
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