Cubs' Colvin Hospitalized After Shattered Bat Injury

[Don Quixote]

Here we go....

http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/news/story?id=5592592

[twoBshorty]

Chicago reporters are tweeting that Colvin had to have a chest tube put in to keep his lungs from collapsing. The bat didn't puncture a lung, but it did breach the integrity of the chest wall and let air in, and based on my limited knowledge of anatomy, that's very bad. The lungs depend on a very specific pressure balance to stay inflated and working properly and if you mess with that, PFFFT!

MLB has to do something about these bats. Are they waiting for someone to die? It could have easily been this kid.

[allstar1579]

Chicago reporters are tweeting that Colvin had to have a chest tube put in to keep his lungs from collapsing. The bat didn't puncture a lung, but it did breach the integrity of the chest wall and let air in, and based on my limited knowledge of anatomy, that's very bad. The lungs depend on a very specific pressure balance to stay inflated and working properly and if you mess with that, PFFFT!

MLB has to do something about these bats. Are they waiting for someone to die? It could have easily been this kid.

Yeah I watched the video, and while it didn't look as bad as it sounded, (I was picturing half a bat sticking out of his chest like someone thought he was a vampire and was putting him down) it's still scary.

[SammyBirdland]

Wow, that was about six inches away from being a huge tragedy. It would have been like the MLB version of the Zednik hockey skate incident.

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[Mark Carver]

MLB will not do anything about the quality of the wood until someone dies...

[Gurgi]

I think this will lead to something happening in the offseason. No way the players union can withstand a move to ban maple bats. Not when the league can use this as an example.

[scOtt]

MLB will not do anything about the quality of the wood until someone dies...

Sadly, I think this is most likely. Total inertia until someone dies and public outrage is so strong that they have to move.

[byrdz]

Sadly, I think this is most likely. Total inertia until someone dies and public outrage is so strong that they have to move.

Fans love injuries, destruction, and blood. A Nascar race is more exciting when there's a wreck, a football game is more exciting when a quarterback gets leveled, a hockey match is more exciting when the gloves come off, UFC, boxing, where do I stop? It'd be like adding ancient greek, gladiator style weapons to baseball. If I were a player I don't think I'd rest my fate on the public.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Fans love injuries, destruction, and blood. A Nascar race is more exciting when there's a wreck, a football game is more exciting when a quarterback gets leveled, a hockey match is more exciting when the gloves come off, UFC, boxing, where do I stop? It'd be like adding ancient greek, gladiator style weapons to baseball. If I were a player I don't think I'd rest my fate on the public.

The problems with that logic are twofold.

First, the chances are just as good that the death will occur in the stands than on the field. I doubt Roman arena sports would have been nearly as popular had there been a real chance the day would end with a spectator's gluteus becoming a target for a fighter's gladius.

Second, all of what you say has to do with the action itself. People like to see two hockey players in the heat of the moment fight, not someone have their neck slit by a skate. They like to see trained and skilled boxers out-fight one another, not have someone bludgeoned to death. Even the auto racing point, while closer, still has the element of all of the technology put in place to protect the driver: the fan watching will be awed by the destruction while still having the knowledge that the chances for severe injury or death are minimized.

Honestly, you can look at the growing interest and worry about the potential for long-term damage from playing football to see where your point is all wrong.

[byrdz]

The problems with that logic are twofold.

First, the chances are just as good that the death will occur in the stands than on the field. I doubt Roman arena sports would have been nearly as popular had there been a real chance the day would end with a spectator's gluteus becoming a target for a fighter's gladius.

Well this is fine, but it's not the players they'd be concerned with, It'd be their own butts. That could easily be fixed by putting netting up. Honestly, the pitcher (and infielders) are at greater danger than anyone in the park IMO.

Honestly, you can look at the growing interest and worry about the potential for long-term damage from playing football to see where your point is all wrong.

I assume you're referring to the growing interest that doctors are finding that football player are having complications and even dying young because of multiple concussions. Doesn't this fit into the common sense category? Why do we need doctors to convince us that being hit in what equates to a severe traffic accident over and over and over, is bad for us?

Sorry but no football fan wants the game to change as drastically as it needs to change in order to "protect the players". The players are supposed to be tough and able to take it, and well they should know what they're getting themselves into, right? It wouldn't be the same game afterwards. NFL might change the rules once it acquires a few too many lawsuits though. The solution to football is to take off the pads and helmets.

[TGO]

It's sad it had to come to this, but it looks like things are gathering steam now. Chicago blogs are starting to pick up this story and mainstream journalists there might run with it soon: http://itsaboutthemoney.net/archives/2010/09/20/the-gospel-of-batglove-is-growing/

Apparently there is a clear tape that can be applied to the lower 18" of maple bats to keep them in one piece when they break. It has been tested at MLB's official laboratory in Lowell. The union ok'd it, but Rawlings and (I assume) the Commissioner's Office nixed it.

[TGO]

Well this is fine, but it's not the players they'd be concerned with, It'd be their own butts. That could easily be fixed by putting netting up. Honestly, the pitcher (and infielders) are at greater danger than anyone in the park IMO.

I assume you're referring to the growing interest that doctors are finding that football player are having complications and even dying young because of multiple concussions. Doesn't this fit into the common sense category? Why do we need doctors to convince us that being hit in what equates to a severe traffic accident over and over and over, is bad for us?

Sorry but no football fan wants the game to change as drastically as it needs to change in order to "protect the players". The players are supposed to be tough and able to take it, and well they should know what they're getting themselves into, right? It wouldn't be the same game afterwards. NFL might change the rules once it acquires a few too many lawsuits though. The solution to football is to take off the pads and helmets.

The scary reports about football lately are that even sub-concussion level head injuries may cause significant long term brain damage.

[olehippi]

I think this will lead to something happening in the offseason. No way the players union can withstand a move to ban maple bats. Not when the league can use this as an example.

I would think the players union would be the one leading the charge to get rid of the maple bats.

This was sure to happen sometime -- inevitable, in fact -- a player being seriously injured by the dagger-like end of a broken maple bat. And, there have already been a number of fans sitting in the stands injured by these maple missiles. But teams and MLB hide safely behind the legal "at your own risk" warnings to beware of balls (and bats) that might zoom into the stands. The question should be asked: does that warning apply to bats that suddenly become vampire-killing stakes?

After this incident, MLB and the players union have to take notice -- one of their own has narrowly escaped a serious, and potentially lethal, injury. Certainly they will be forced to make changes.

There has been talk of coating bats with a material that would hold the wood together when a bat shattered, but I don't think anyone knows how that will affect how a ball will react when struck with such a treated bat.

Or MLB might authorize the use of composite bats that mimic the properties of wood and won't become a launch weapon further endangering pitchers and infielders.

My guess is that they will force players to go back to the ash bats, which will break, but very seldom splinter into sharp-ended projectiles. I've heard the argument that a good piece of ash is hard to fine, but I don't believe it.

[scOtt]

Fans love injuries, destruction, and blood. A Nascar race is more exciting when there's a wreck, a football game is more exciting when a quarterback gets leveled, a hockey match is more exciting when the gloves come off, UFC, boxing, where do I stop? It'd be like adding ancient greek, gladiator style weapons to baseball. If I were a player I don't think I'd rest my fate on the public.

That's all very true. I more meant outrage after someone died. I agree it wouldn't happen on it's own.

[Mark Carver]

Fans love injuries, destruction, and blood. A Nascar race is more exciting when there's a wreck, a football game is more exciting when a quarterback gets leveled, a hockey match is more exciting when the gloves come off, UFC, boxing, where do I stop? It'd be like adding ancient greek, gladiator style weapons to baseball. If I were a player I don't think I'd rest my fate on the public.

Until it affects them, ehhhh?

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