Should Pitchers Be Required to Wear Helmets?

"I don't remember seeing [the ball]. Just immediate loud ringing in my ear. Just pressure on my ear, and I was on the ground. That was kind of it.”

That, according to an Associated Press report, was how Toronto Blue Jays pitcher J.A. Happ described the line drive that hit him in the head during his team’s May 7 game against Tampa Bay. The impact left him with a skull fracture and a knee that was tweaked as he fell to the ground.

Happ’s injury has brought attention to other pitchers who have sustained similar injuries in the past. Major league pitcher Bryce Florie was struck in the right eye by a line drive more than a decade ago. According to Paul Newberry of the Associated Press, Florie would pitch only seven more games after that incident before vision problems cut his career short; even today, his peripheral vision remains far from nominal.

Just last year, a high school pitcher in West Virginia had a line drive hit him centimeters away from his temple. WOWK TV reported that Dusty Kincaid sustained brain swelling and went into a coma. But he would wake up after a miraculous surgery, and despite having doctors telling him he’d never play baseball again, he began his college baseball career this past winter.

These incidents are among those that have been cited by those in the sports world as reasons to research ways to protect pitchers. According to one AP report, Major League Baseball’s senior vice president, Dan Halem, says six companies so far are designing headgear for pitchers, but none have yet to create a product that is adequately protective and comfortable.

Zach Stoloff of the New England Sports Network points out that base coaches at all levels of professional baseball have been required to wear helmets since the 2008 season. Though those individuals are 90 feet away from a batted ball, pitchers are only about 55 feet away from one.

Stoloff adds that pitchers at the collegiate league could be at an even greater risk, as they face batters that wield metal bats that can create even faster line drives.

Should major league pitchers be encouraged, or perhaps required, to wear helmets once the technology is ready? Should such safety measures be applied to pitchers in other levels of baseball, such as college, high school or Little League?

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