Major League Baseball needs to get tougher, not wimpier

When my family lived in Rochester NY, we would frequently attend Rochester Redwings games, a AAA team. They usually had good teams and at the time played in an old ballpark called Silver Stadium. I remember during one of the first games I went to with my Dad, I asked why there was a net behind home plate. He explained that it was so a sharply hit foul ball wouldn't fly back and seriously injure a fan. Then some guy behind us said something that as a 7 or 8 year old I thought was absolutely hilarious. He said, "Yeah, I've always wished that net wasn't there, so that I could see some pitcher throw a really high fastball and catch some guy right between the eyes!"

What happened to the Braves minor league manager, Luis Salazar, certainly isn't funny. After getting hit with a foul ball while in the dugout last week, he had to undergo surgery to have his eye removed. Truly a sad story. (Here's the story at ESPN.)

But now the sports world is talking about going nuts with protective measures in professional baseball. Ideas including making pitchers wear helmets and caging the dugouts are getting thrown out there.

What is going on here? Are we really that scared of everything, that there has to be a protective measure taken for almost every danger or tragedy imaginable? Every pitcher knows when he steps on that mound what he is up against, just as every player sitting in a dugout better know that he should be paying attention. Ty Cobb used to sharpen his spikes in front of the opposing team so that when he'd slide into a base the basemen wouldn't be as aggressive in trying to tag him. Now in the last few years players have been wearing shoulder and elbow pads because they don't want to be hit by a pitch.

From a PR standpoint, baseball already tends to get made fun of by those loyal to other sports as the game which involves minimum amount of contact and doesn't require players to be in as good of shape. Now people are considering caging the dugouts?

It's really not so much a reflection on baseball as it is a reflection of our society. Not every danger can be prevented. It's just life. After all, the American League already has the DH for all the wimpy managers who can't figure out how to work a pitcher into the lineup. Let's keep the wimpiness level at that.

Or better yet, get rid of the DH as well.