[jkumpire]

A couple of responses,

One of our good friends said a major problem wwas "players getting hit by balls in the face." The key is when. I know of one who got killed in a game since 1982 with a thrown ball.

As to catchers and umpires: Folks the difference between a batter and F2 and the PU is somewhat akin to the difference between night and day. A batter has to move out of the way (remember that rule), umpires and catchers have to stay still behind home plate catching or looking at pitches. We don't move (at least I hope so).

I am somewhat symapthetic to the "if it saves one life argument it's worth it" line of thought, but if that's case, where else in our society do we apply such a cost/benefit analysis? Let's mandate the driving age be 21 for bicycles and 35 for motor cars then.

Unless I am senile in the years 1982-2005 on the HS level the chances of dying in a baseball game by getting hit by a pitch is at most 1 in 1 million participants. And that is if every death reported was in a game (not practice), and done only by being hit with a pitch. Let us compare say, the top 10 causes of death in males under age 18, anyone care to guess if the odds are this small?

Further, let's ban football, unless you limit it to non-contact, no helmet flag football and allow no practice or games when the temprature is above 65 and below 50. Now you have eliminated almost all risk in a much riskier sport than baseball. Let's also eliminate swimming, cheerleading and wrestling, and now
it's safe for athletes to play sports. Hooray!

If you want to assure fewer deaths, then outlaw the head first slide, and use soft baseballs, or hollow plastic bats. Now the chances of death in baseball are close to nil, but is it baseball?

I'm sorry, I wish we had details on every death in HS Baseball since 1982 somewhere, so we could do a real risk analysis. I doubt we ever will see such a thing, because the FED laywers who make the rules would never allow it to that open a process.

And if you use face masks, I woudl submit you have the possibility for more minor injuries because of the limited vision, and the freedom to allow people to use their head as a weapon (i.e. R2 says, "Hey I got my face covered, let me go in an take F2 out at home by getting him in the knees").

I'll get off my soapbox now, and thanks for reading.