Protection In Baseball

Evolution of Protection in Baseball In the spring of 1871, the first ever Major League Baseball game was held between the Cleveland Forest Cities and the Ft. Wayne Kekiongas (Smith, 1). Baseball originally came as an unordinary sport to the public. Although, after a notice in the interesting aspects that make up the game, baseball became one of the most attended and watched sports in the United States of America. One of the surprising, yet oddly interesting, factors in the population growth of baseball can be credited with the high pace and movement of the game. High pace and fast movement blew the fans’ minds simply because it was incredible to see a human react to a ninety mile per hour pitch. Unfortunately, “blazing heaters”, or fastballs,

The catcher is the man who squats behind the batter, receiving every blazing heater from the pitcher, and occasionally take a foul ball off the face. Although that might sound expected, imagine sitting behind home plate and being hit by a ninety-five mph baseball off the face without any protection. For four years catchers have suffered through this until the first mask was invented in 1875 by Jim Tyng who modified a fencing mask. This new mask, enhanced Tyng’s gameplay; where as a result, he exhibited only two errors in the full season. This mask became a major breakthrough in baseball, but innovation would not settle for just a cool fencing mask. Later in 1888, George Barnard patented his own version of the catcher’s mask that enhanced their view of the field (EpicSports, 11). This new mask was made with hard wire and created a wider peripheral view range. From here on out, new masks and patents were coming in and out of Major League Baseball up until the latest mask was created by Spalding in 1997. This mask had a more of a hockey goaltender look to it, but offered throat protection and concussion proof padding. This is the greatest mask and worn by almost every professional catcher in baseball

... It swelled up bigger than my fist.”

This injury is just as serious as any other kind resulting in future disabilities. Luckily, newly reformed cups have been created such as the Nutty Buddy, which has been proven to withstand a 100 mph fastball to the abdominal area. Nevertheless, baseball has grown from not wearing protection, to wearing a piece of padding, to now wearing guaranteed protective equipment. Professional players in the late 1800’s would think baseball today as a whole different sport because of the new inventions that were not around when baseball first began. The safety of players is the number one priority today, and that safety will be ensured more and more every day until full protection is