Baseball's refusal to learn from the past

On Saturday, this happened.

 Alex Cobb was lucky, he never lost consciousness and suffered a concussion.  This is not the first time this has happened in baseball.  In fact, it's not the first time it's happened this year.  In fact, it's not the first time it's happened at Sun Life Stadium this year.  Earlier this year, J.A. Happ was the victim of a come backer that fractured his skull.

Happ was hit on May 8 and hasn't played since.  There's no way to know the time table on Cobb's return, as Happ's injury was more serious.

These injuries make me mad at baseball.  Not because they happened, these hits happen in baseball.  They're scary, unexpected, and for years there was nothing you could do about it.  Sadly, there is something that can be done, but baseball refuses to change, and until they do, we will continue to see injuries like this occur.  Last year, a company called Unequal Technologies designed and created padded baseball caps for pitchers to wear to help lessen the extent of these injuries.

The armor-like padding on the inside of Unequal technologies safer hat

The hat was presented to baseball in December of 2012, and they let pitchers try them out, to see how they felt.  No one complained.

Then in February of this year, Major League Baseball announced that no padding was going to be approved for the 2013 season, and that more testing was required.  Baseball says that the padding does not stop the velocity of a 100 MPH fastball.

Really?  A liner can't stop a 100 MPH fastball?  I know absolutely zero technical data on any of the paddings tested, but I could already tell you that.  I'll wager my first born that every single hat tested at least lessened the impact, and I really don't think either Cobb or Happ would complain of a lessened impact from their injuries.  I'm not saying that their injuries would have been completely prevented, but in watching the videos it does appear that both players were hit in the hat, and if they had been wearing a padded hat, their injuries would be less severe.

This isn't the first time baseball has refused to make changes for safety.  While mostly pitchers are the ones hit by these line drives, it took the death of a minor league first base coach for baseball to mandate that the base coaches wear helmets.

Mike Coolbaugh was struck and killed by a line drive in July of 2007.

Oh, did I mention he wasn't struck in the head?  Michael Coolbaugh (who had an amazing name) was struck in the throat by a line drive in a minor league game that severed his left vertebral artery, and essentially killed him on impact.  Baseball responded by making base coaches wear helmets, a safety measure that would have done absolutely nothing to save Coolbaugh's life.

And while safety is always a major concern in sports (look at what Goodel is doing to the NFL) it isn't just the safety issues where baseball is dropping the ball.  Replay, which is now used in baseball, was debated for over 20 years before being implemented, and it still is only used on home run calls.  The replay issue I feel is a little more tricky to expand beyond home run calls, as baseball is slow enough.  Maybe on bang-bang plays at first, really close double plays, I don't know.  But I do know if it was implemented back when it was first discussed things like this would never have happened.

In 1996, 11 year old Jeffrey Maier won the game for the Yankees with this home run assist in game 1 of the ALCS

Now, several things would happen on that play.  The umps would review the home run call, and rule it fan interference.  Maier would have been removed from the stadium by security.  And maybe the Orioles would have won the series.  The latter, I dunno, but hey, a guy can dream.

So what I'm trying to say here is that baseball, you need to learn from your past.  It took you close to 20 years to realize that replay on home runs is a good idea, is it going to take a pitcher dying for you to give them - at the very least - padded hats?  I'm not even suggesting helmets!  Just thicker hats!

What makes the hat thing even worse, is baseball actually reached out in 2012 and commisoioned companies to start work and design on a padded hat.  They've had all this time to implement them, because - shocker! - it didn't take a technological breakthrough to design a hat with padding in it.  In fact, baseball's hat padding search predated this horrendous injury.

 

Brandon McCarthy - who walks off of the field on his own - suffered an epidural hemorrhage,  a brain contusion, and a skull fracture.  He missed the rest of the season, and is attempting a come back with the Diamondbacks now.  A week ago he suffered a seizure in a restaurant in Phoenix that doctors have said is directly related to his initial injury last year.  When baseball denied the various padded hats from being used this season, McCarthy had this to say

"The stuff that's already out there is no good at all.  It seems like it's still a long way away.  I don't even care if it's MLB-approved.  I just want something that's functionally approved by me."

These comments were made in February 2013, prior to McCarthy's complications last week.

Moral of the story here is, baseball, shut the hell up about not wanting to change.  This isn't a rules change.  This doesn't change the pace of the game.  It simply makes players safer.  So nut up and do it already, and hopefully the frequency of these injuries will become as close to zero as possible.

And then maybe you can address your drug situation.  I dunno, maybe test players instead of waiting for distribution centers to get closed by the Feds.

A phenomenon I've been meaing to mention

Today I'm going to talk about something I've noticed for years.  A simple phenomenon that I first remember noticing in the spring of 2007.  I looked around when I realized what was happening, and after some quick discussion among my friends, I realized I was not alone in what I was experiencing.

I am, of course, talking about the phenomenon of white people clapping.

What I remember as the original date of noticing this phenomenon was May or June of 2007.  Myself and a group of friends were at another friends college graduation when a small band of professors went onstage as some sort of folksy bluegrass band, I don't really remember what.  Shortly after they began performing, the crowd began clapping in time with the music, and it all kinda went to hell from there.

It became clear - very, very clear - after about 15 seconds that no one present was able to clap on beat.  I don't know why everyone was on a different beat, but it was... pretty bad.  I began laughing hysterically, and it was then and there that I determined that there is such a phenomenon known as white people clapping.

This is a problem that has been around for a very long time, and I know I'm not the first to notice it.  A quick bit of internet research claims that the reason for this is simply when white people clap.  Claims are that white people clap on the 1 & 3, or the "off" beats, while everyone else claps on the 2 & 4. 

I really, really, really wish it was that simple.

Truth of the matter is, if you are clapping on any beat consistently, you will still clap in rhythm.  It may sound off, but the rhythmic nature of the clap should remain consistent.  This simply doesn't happen when a group of white people begin clapping.  At best, it turns into an odd form of applause.

The most recent observation of this phenomenon for me happened about 2 weeks ago, when I was covering a music festival for the paper.  As part of the festival, they had an American Idol-esque competition, and most of the singers attempted to get the crowd to clap along.

It was really, really, really bad.

Until the black people showed up.

Once the black people began clapping, it was great!  But left to their own devices, the white people were just... oh man.  Oddly enough, I did notice that there still was an issue when the audience was predominantly black, but it was minor at best, and nothing compared to the lack of rhythm that white people have demonstrated over the years.

Why this theory has proven itself to me over and over again, I will never know, but it is something that white people need to address.  Maybe we need required music education to teach white people basic rhythms, maybe everybody should have a metronome in their house, I don't know.  But dammit, I hate being the only white guy at events who can clap on beat.

Oddly enough though, there is a large group of white people who don't have this issue, and in fact, they rarely have issue maintaining any beat.  This group of people are only ever sighted in arenas and stadiums.

That's right, sports fans.

Take any white guy with no rhythm and stick him in a sports stadium, and suddenly he's a human metronome. 

Don't believe me?

Watch this.

 

 Fast forward to 3:30

This is in London, people.  It doesn't get much whiter then that.  Throw a bunch of sports fans together, and they have rhythm.  Don't know why, they just do.   If you still don't believe me, go to a hockey game.  Just sit back, and listen.

Or, better yet, go to a country music concert and hope people begin to clap.  If nothing else, that will also help prove my point.

So I invite you all, go out and observe this phenomena, and whatever side of the discussion you fall onto, please, help others find their rhythm, and learn how to successfully clap.