Who says football doesn’t care about concussions? Their leadership has been testing helmets for greater protection since 1912.
1) Football Cares About the Presence of Concussions. Football’s a violent game and concussions are going to happen, but hopefully, as only a side effect of playing the game. In the past couple of years, leaders at all levels of thee organized sport have been adjusting the rules of contact, approving better protective equipment, and defining more stringent ways in which teams handle all cases in which a game-participation concussion is suspected. Football is violent physical contact game. The realistic goal is a reduction of concussions and other life-altering injuries. Football will never be chess – without changing most of what fans like about the game.
Boxing thrives among those who enjoy watching someone else receive a concussion that they trust was for real.
2) Boxing Cares About the Creation of Concussions. The whole objective of any fight worth drawing a gate is the hope of fans that have come to see a concussive end to a fight called a knockout in a match that is both on-the-square honest for some stakes that matter (like the heavyweight championship) between two fighters who matter as good guys or bad guys. Nobody goes to a big fight hoping to watch boxers dance and jab at each other a few times in each round. The boxing fan wants to see somebody other than themselves knocked into an unconscious state that keeps a fighter down for the count of ten. Somewhere in the last twenty years, changes in the culture and boxing’s longtime reputation for fight-fixing and other shady dealing have suffered a head-on collision of their own. May among this fans group hasn’t given up on their desire for violence; they’ve just taken it somewhere else – somewhere they trust the knockout violence that they no longer see in boxing. All those martial arts and boxing mixes now performed in caged arenas are the new home of many boxing fans. The irony to the football example is fairly obvious. These other combat sports are not looking for ways to avoid concussions, but for ways to make their knockout concussions more credible.
Pete Rose of the Reds slams into catcher Ray Fosse of the Indians in the 1970 All Star Game.
3) Baseball Cares About the Avoidance of Concussions. Baseball has never been tea and crumpets. If you’ve ever played the game, you know how physically demanding it can be – and how collisions between two outfielders – or your nose catching the throw from a catcher on your attempted steal of second feel. – Those were my personal examples. They pain was only delayed by the star burst in my head that, in turn, preceded the state of unconsciousness that set in prior to an awakening into a temporary state of pain and disfigurement. We also didn’t bat with helmets back in my day. I’ve often wondered how much those beanings I took had to do with some of my subsequent life decisions, but I was luckier than most. Baseball took a major step to the curtailment of serious injury this season with the new rule that prevents the catcher from blocking home plate. It’s too late to help Ray Fosse of the Indians avoid his legacy blast into baseball history as the catcher who got the bajeebers knocked out of him by Pete Rose in the 1970 All Star Game, but maybe it will save a life or career or life-altering concussion to someone else along the way. I have mixed feelings about the change because it creates runs that rarely would have scored against the likes of Johnny Bench, Roy Campanella, or Bill Dickey, to name a few of the great plate blockers, but progress is what is.
Manager Bob Dorrill preps his Babies club prior to a game with the Katy Combine at George Ranch last spring. – The place just reeks of a real trip to the 19th century.
4) Avoid Concussions! – Come See The Houston Babies Play at George Ranch Tomorrow, Saturday, October 25, 2014! We cannot guarantee the absence of concussions when we take the field of play tomorrow at 10:00 Am and again at either 12 Noon or 1:00 PM, but we can promise a game of interesting 160’s rule, vintage baseball on a bright sunshiny day at the Texas Heritage Festival (They may have another formal name for it) – an all day exposition of Texas history by food drink, ad activity at the authentic George Ranch Park south of Sugar Land. As participants in this fun sport, our players all put their bodies at risk in a world that is primarily governed by the laws of physics and chemistry. Prime Example: Two objects of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time, especially if both objects weigh close to 200 pounds and they are moving unknowingly toward each other at 15 MPH in pursuit of a baseball. The probability of a concussion in these cases is about 51.4%. The probability of you having fun at tomorrow’s Babies Games is 99.5%.
At any rate, whatever you do, have a nice Saturday – and stay on your feet – whenever possible! 🙂
Tags: concussions in sports
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