Posted on 05/17/2008 10:20:12 PM PDT by MissouriConservative
Any judge that would allow this to see the light of day in a courtroom should be removed from the bench.
many years ago I was the pitcher on a slow-pitch team. a guy came up to bat and hit a line drive back at my head and I managed to get the glove up and caught the ball not 2 inches from my face. it came back to me as a BULLET. shortly thereafter I gave up pitching and moved to 3rd..my last game as a player was when I was about 65 feet away from the batter and he hit a shot, a bullet, whatever you want to call it, at me that was so fast I had zero reaction time and the ball hit me on the shoulder..didn’t break anything although I was sore for a month, but I figured it was time to hang up the glove..
Tiddlywinks, perhaps? Oops, sorry! I forgot about carpal tunnel syndrome.
So! They should sue Alcoa?
E1
"He's a bubble boy!"
I've recycled a lot of equipment, but I needed a new kid bat.
So, I went to Dick's Sporting Goods, and what I found amazed me.
I'm sure I don't need to tell you, but the place is filled with carbon-fiber and other high-tech bats, for children, all $100+ and some >$300.
This is nuts.
If they went back to wood, they could go back to real baseballs instead of RIF-balls, because no ten-year old can kill someone with a line drive off of a 28+ ounce wood bat.
Condolences to the family, BUT
1. They signed a release form, right? They visited and saw practice games, right? *Reasonable and typical* common practice is NOT gross negligence.
2. If all the balls had serial numbers, like Democrats want to register bullets, this wouldn’t have happened, of course. /Sarcasm
This is such a sad exploitive use of a poor crippled child..anyone with common sense will know that this was just a terible tragedy..but juries unfortunately don’t have a lot of common sense..(look at the breck girls bank account)..anyway..the defense will wheel in the poor kid..the jurors will say,”Oh how sad..these companies have deep pockets..they can ‘pay’ for his care”..and “send a message” with millions to the lawyers, er, family of the poor kid..and in the end we all pay for the judgment..
I last coached/managed elite 12-year olds in 1992/3, and my last prior experience with 7-9 year olds was in the 80s.
When I observe the little kids now, the difference that the equipment makes for the skilled nine-year old is dramatic. We have a few 9 year old kids in our "farm" level who just missed being drafted this year, and when they turn on the pitch (from a Dad) with a high-tech bat, they can hit a line drive that no seven-year old on earth can handle.
There are always going to be distortions built into the game with 60 foot bases and a 44-foot rubber. Every LL manager knows that running speed comes before reflexes and power, which is why as soon as stealing is allowed, everyone runs as often as possible.
But it may be that "dumbing down" the equipment to allow average and below average kids (mainstream kids, IOW) to be successful at bat has created a dangerous situation where above-average and elite kids can now hit for power to fielders (and especially to pitchers) who are too close to the plate to handle it.
Hey Dad, what's this Fielder Glove thingy I'm wearin' for? Gee, I don't know Jr, just throw the dang ball will ya.
As a Pitcher you just don't stand there like a friggen statue after releasing the ball, you get ready to play defense. Like for LINE DRIVES that'll take your head off! (or hit you smack in the chest and stop your heart)
It's too bad the kid got hurt but these parents need to be taken to the woodshed. Baseball ain't Beanbag.
Lets’ blame the pitcher for tossing a pitch that could be hit by the batter.
Lets’ blame the pitcher for tossing a pitch that could be hit by the batter.
“How ya doing over there? Not too good!”
What’s next? Suing Callaway for making an effective golf club?
“As a Pitcher you just don’t stand there like a friggen statue after releasing the ball, you get ready to play defense. Like for LINE DRIVES that’ll take your head off! (or hit you smack in the chest and stop your heart)”
Then, by extension of your logic, aluminum bat manufacturer’s should be allowed to produce bats that generate exit velocities of say 120 mph, 150 mph, 200 mph, or perhaps 250 mph? That is like saying that defense contractor’s should produce aircraft that can pull 20X more “G’s” than human pilots can consciously withstand?
Yea, some of these posters seem to forget we’re talking about children here.
I wouldn’t want to live in world where kids couldn’t spend at least half their time daydreaming, especially on a Little League field.
They should sue the school district instead for not playing whiffleball instead of the more dangerous “baseball”.
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