BRADENTON, Fla. In a given year in Major League Baseball, from spring training through the playoffs, the number of pitches thrown approaches a million. In a given year in Major League Baseball, more than 99.999 percent of those pitches will not result in a pitcher getting hit in the head by a line drive.On Wednesday night in Arizona, the le s-than-0.001 percent chance was realized, and while that makes , the Cincinnati Reds' closer also is very lucky that he should be able to pitch again in a couple of months.In major league history, there has only been one player who died as a result of being hit in the head by a baseball Ray Chapman was hit by a Carl Mays pitch in 1920 but even given the incredibly long odds of Zach Eflin Jersey a fatality, doing everything po sible to ensure that Mays' pitch remains the only lethal one every thrown in the majors is obviously of paramount importance.MORE: | The question is: how is such prevention po sible?"I know that baseball's looking into a lot of things, but I really don't know a whole lot about what they're looking into and what they're trying to do," Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Cody Eppley told Sporting News on Thursday. "We'll see what routes they take. It's a nasty thing to see stuff like that, and my thoughts and prayers are with Chapman and his Richie Ashburn Jersey family."One of the routes taken by MLB is to introduce protective headgear for pitchers, with panels sewn into hats to make them safer. The new caps have yet to catch on."I haven't even seen one, to be honest," said Pirates pitcher Tony Watson. "I don't think about it that much when I'm out there. I know some other guys might, but it's kind of like the old thing that if you think you're gonna get hurt, you're gonna get hurt. If you think you're gonna get hit with a comebacker, you're probably gonna get hit with a comebacker. You can't go out there thinking like that."Even Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Brandon McCarthy, who needed brain surgery after being hit by a line drive in 2012, is not Greg Luzinski Jersey wearing the new hat. In January, responding on Twitter to a fan's question about the subject, , "I helped design it. It's not ready."Haberdashery is an imperfect solution anyway. As fortunate as Chapman was, the fact remains that his injury just as easily could have been much worse, and he was not hit in an area covered by a hat. Unle s MLB develops a hockey-style mask for pitchers, or a screen that pops up from the area in front of the mound in a fraction of a second, or a force field of lasers, there will be some risk involved in being le s than 60 feet away from a profe sional athlete swinging a bat at a baseball, arms and legs all in motion."The game's been played forever, and I'm sure 150 years ago, there were guys that were getting hit in the head with line drives," Watson said. "It doesn't happen a lot, but when it does, it's big news because it's a big injury and it's a scary injury. We'll hope for the best for Aroldis and hope he comes back okay."Watson was not being glib about the i sue when talking about things happening a century and a half ago. There's just a certain approach that someone in a position of a certain amount of danger has to take to avoid being overwhelmed by the worst-case Jorge Alfaro Jersey scenario. When you cro s the street, you look both ways to make sure that you don't get run over by a bus. A pitcher, ideally, will be able to get a hand up to stop a ball from hitting him in the head. Some people get run over by buses. Some pitchers get hit in the head by line drives. You try to keep from having such things anywhere but in the back of your mind unle s it's absolutely nece sary for them to come to the fore."It's always tough to see guys get hit like that, but it's not like every pitcher that goes out there is thinking about it and hoping they don't get hit with a Aaron Altherr Jersey comebacker in the head," Watson said. "Usually, your instincts take over, but it's unfortunate when a situation like that happens, where a guy's throwing so hard, the ball's coming back so hard off the bat you don't have time to react. We saw it a couple of years ago with McCarthy, and obviously last night. It's tough to see that, but McCarthy bounced back, and he's back pitching, so hopefully, Chapman, he's a good arm and good for the game, so hopefully he'll get back out there as soon as po sible."MORE: |