Litigation

Who protects the umpire from concussion damage?

By Michael Kaplen

An interesting article appear in USA Today, Advances, equipment help protect major league umpires which discussed the risk of concussion injury faced by umpires.

Umpires often take hard hits to the head ? typically from foul tips off the mask ? raising enough concern that head trauma experts address them during their yearly offseason meetings. The umpires also get baseline cognitive testing through the ImPACT computer program.

But major league baseball cannot provide any statistics on the number or frequency of concussion injuries to its umpires.

Most importantly, who examines the umpire and determines when her or she should be removed from the game?  Who replaces the umpire if he or she must sit out the remainder of a game because of a concussion or a suspected concussion?

These are important issues that must be addressed by major league baseball before the commencement of this year?s season.

Full post as published by Brain Injury News and Information on March 23, 2011 (boomark / email).