On March 11 in Marin County, a Marin Catholic HS pitcher was hit by a line drive above his right ear. The pitcher, Gunnar Sandberg, suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Two days later, Sandberg was in a medically induced coma. Sandberg was in the coma for three weeks and then spent another 5 weeks in a San Francisco rehabilitation hospital. Sandberg’s injury came from a ball hit by an aluminum bat.
Albany Little League’s Board of Directors created a Wood Bat Committee in the wake of discussion inspired by Sandberg’s injury. The Committee members are David Dempster (Chairperson and author of this article, also former Chief Umpire and Player Agent), Stephen DeGange (coach at the Juniors level; also coached in Majors), Geno Romero (current Chief Umpire), Dale Freeman (coach at the Majors level and manager of the 2009 9-10 All-Stars). A report is to be presented to the ALL Board of Directors on May 26.
Aluminum bats first appeared in NCAA contests in 1974. The NFHS (National Federation of High Schools) also allowed aluminum bats that same year. Aluminum bats made their first appearance in Little League a few years later. Carbon fiber bats did not make their appearance in Albany Little League until about 2004-2005.
The initial reason for the popularity of aluminum bats was cost-savings and longevity. Early on, it became apparent that aluminum held other advantages over wood: aluminum was lighter, stronger, could send a batted ball farther and higher, and sometimes resulted in more hits depending on the hitter.
The often overlooked disadvantage of the earliest aluminum bats was that balls were hit with more speed. Anecdotal evidence was offered through various media to show that injuries from aluminum-batted balls were more severe.
A study presented at Sydney, Australia in June 2000, Characterizing the Performance of Baseball Bats using Experimental and Finite Element Methods, discussed the ways in which wood and aluminum bats behaved and the effect on batted balls. In short, construction and materials make significant differences in the effect on batted balls. Aluminum (and now, composite) bats use hollow tube construction, whereas wood bats are solid throughout. This gives aluminum two distinct advantages in batting a ball farther. First, because aluminum bats are always lighter, the batter can generate higher bat speed. Second, because of the hollow tube construction and the characteristics of metal under impact as opposed to solid wood construction, aluminum bats experience “hoop deformation” during impact and a snap back confirmed through high speed photography. This creates what is commonly referred to as a “trampoline effect”: the ball hit with an aluminum bat launches off the bat with greater velocity than a ball hit by a wood bat.
Wood’s analogous effect is much less profound because most of a wood bat’s strain energy is in the bending back of the barrel, not in the deformation of the barrel itself as occurs in aluminum. Instead, a ball impacted by a wood bat more profoundly deforms. The ball deformation lowers the overall energy transmission of impact.
In the study, ball exit speeds for wood bats ranged from 90 to 94 mph while ball exit speeds for aluminum bats ranged from 97 to 113 mph.
This brings us to the incidence of injuries in baseball, and sports overall. Basketball, bicycling, and football all have significantly greater numbers of injuries treated in hospital ERs for children ages 5 to 14 than baseball. According to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford (LPCH), death from sports injury is rare. When death does occur, the leading cause is TBI. And while baseball is the sport with the highest fatality rate, only about 1 death per year (on average) can be attributed to TBI out of an estimated 4.8 million children ages 5-14 playing baseball annually. Nearly twice as many deaths in baseball occurred from direct-ball impact with the chest as compared to TBI.
In April 2001, PEDIATRICS published an article, Risk of Injury from Baseball and Softball in Children. According to that article, in 1995 an estimated 162,000 baseball, softball and tee-ball injuries to children 5 to 14 years of age were treated in hospital ERs. Statistics compiled by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission indicate that there were 88 baseball-related deaths to children in the same age group during the period of 1973 to 1995, an average of about 4 per year.
The article was also concerned with overuse injuries, most often sustained by pitchers, and most often affecting the elbows or the shoulders. In response to overuse and other injuries, the American Academy of Pediatrics offered 8 recommendations, some of which are already followed by Little League International and Albany Little League: limiting the number of pitches thrown in a week; the proper use of available safety equipment; rule modifications such as the avoidance of head-first sliding.
Interestingly, no study made any recommendation, indirect or outright, that pitchers wear helmets. Indeed, when people think of helmets, they think of batting helmets. And these helmets are worn at bat and on the bases by all players when their team is at bat. But no one thinks about pitchers wearing a helmet, probably because batting helmets would limit peripheral vision.
The Marin I-J ran a column by Dave Allen about Novato High School pitcher Matt Mendelsohn who now wears a helmet while pitching in the wake of the Gunnar Sandberg accident. Mendelsohn wears a base coach’s helmet while on the mound. While it appears from the article that wearing a base coach’s helmet works for Mendelsohn, it’s uncertain what the fit will be like for other pitchers, and the effect on peripheral vision is unknown. Peripheral vision is an important part of playing the game safely, particularly for pitchers and infielders.
While baseball is considered a pastoral, peaceful non-contact sport, players suffer injury like any other sport. We are fortunate that in Albany Little League, safety is taken seriously and that we will continue to examine ways in which our players can play in a safe environment while maintaining the integrity of the game.
(Editor’s note: The Albany Little League board of directors voted at its meeting on May 26
th to purchase base manager-style helmets next year for each team to afford pitchers the possibility of greater protection against the possibility of batted balls.)