Dangers of being a pitcher...

[StraightGrain11]

I know this was touched on a little bit in the "Lawsuit" thread, but seeing Pujols do what he did to Chris Young the other night, and remembering back to a few others this has happend to (like Willie Blair), kinda makes you stop and wonder just how lucky (and good) a guy like Jim Abbott was. I saw him catch a few "comebackers" when he played; the speed and agility with which he could transfer his glove from hand to hand was absolutely incredible. And after the other night...it seems all the more incredible.

Good luck to Chris on a quick recovery (I already had my left orbital broken this year by our star pitcher's 80+mph fastball - but I was stupid enough to get down without a mask, so...and yes, there was just as much blood ).

[new2thesport]

What a coincidence! I was reading the same recent thread "metal bat lawsuit" by Jake Patterson and then the incident with Pujols and Young aired on tv! That ball the Pujols hit looked faster going back at Young than the original pitch thrown!

[StraightGrain11]

What a coincidence! I was reading the same recent thread "metal bat lawsuit" by Jake Patterson and then the incident with Pujols and Young aired on tv! That ball the Pujols hit looked faster going back at Young than the original pitch thrown!

It probably was (and should be)...90+mph pitch going in, bat speed 85+...you do the math...:silent:

I remember when Willie Blair was hit. The next day in the paper, it said that someone had a gun that caught the exit speed of the ball off the bat at 107mph (I don't know if that's possible, I just remember that's what the paper said)...very scary.

Actually, here's the Article


I, like many others, believe that metal bats should be done away with, and wood bats should be brought back - in some form or other (be it composites if necessary, solely for their durability).
But THIS (incident) is what proves the ultimate point: It is NOT metal bats that are dangerous. It is that fact that one object traveling at a very high rate of speed with a great amount of force is impacting anoter object traveling at almost an equally high rate of speed (with atleast just as much force) and the result of the collision covering a very short distance (be it 45' or 60'6") is what truly is dangerous. Yes, the exit speed on metal bats maybe faster. But the 10th of a millisecond you gain by going from metal to wood is not going to make much of a difference to the pitcher trying to defend himself. There just isn't enough difference in the travel times of the ball (covering those distancees) compared to human reaction times to make the argument that switching to wood is "safer" - switching to wood is SMARTER because it will create better (smarter) hitters = better baseball.

[Go Cardinals]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/8BB952A0075B3F1F86257451007D1673?OpenDocument

[Richmond Hill Phoenix]

The scariest thing is that the shot really could have been many times worse. Pujols just threw his bat at a pitch low-and-away, and made contact. Imagine he'd hit a screaming liner right out of the wheelhouse... Young is really lucky that it wasn't worse.

[Go Cardinals]

Wow it happened again:

http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200805232758132

[MrSurprise]

Yeah I saw that... gahhh he's super lucky also! Our pitchers at our college have to go through drills everyday that finish them in a defensive stance, but even then you have to have lightning reactions to stop a ball like any of these...