The Baseball Observer - Nov/ Dec 2015
16
Understanding Body Part Injury:
The Brain
The Little Hits Can Be Just As Dangerous
When we think of brain trauma in sports, we immediately think football, especially since it had gotten so much press. While brain trauma is a big issue for football, baseball also has a brain trauma problem that until just a couple years ago really hadn’t been addressed.
Staff
The Accumulation Of Numerous Smaller Hits
When you think of how a player might get brain trauma in baseball most come up with getting hit in the head by a pitch, diving for a ball and hitting your head hard on the ground or the wall. Catching a knee to the head while sliding into a base, getting hit in the head by a batted ball or collisions at the plate. While these are excellent examples, it’s the accumulation of numerous smaller hits that don’t cause immediate trauma that can be just as dangerous as the big hits that draw more attention.
The one position that has the most occurrences of numerous smaller hits that can accumulate is the catcher. Foul tips into the mask, a follow through swing that hits the back of the helmet or just dropping and blocking a ball in the dirt that kicks up and hits the mask – all can begin to add up.
Supporting Research
The University of Rochester Medical Center did a study where they followed local football and hockey players for a season. At the end of the season only one player was diagnosed with a concussion but all other players showed signs of changes to the white matter in their brains. The changes were 3 times more vs. a control group who had no hits to the head over the same time frame.
Purdue University did a two years study. In this study, there were 6 athletes that