Injury Scout - Another Kerwin Danley Head Shot in LA

[Lindsay]

Kerwin Danley left Sunday's Royals-Dodgers game in the 2nd inning after a foul ball head injury at Dodger Stadium. It is Danley's second significant game-ending head injury suffered as plate umpire in Los Angeles, including a 2008 episode that required an ambulance and ended with a concussion...

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[txump81]

Wearing the Wilson Shock. Goes to show it doesn't matter, it can still happen.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

[tpatience]

33 minutes ago, txump81 said:

Wearing the Wilson Shock. Goes to show it doesn't matter, it can still happen.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk
 

The forehead on the wilson is very weak. Not good at taking direct shots

[ElkOil]

10 minutes ago, tpatience said:

The forehead on the wilson is very weak. Not good at taking direct shots

What's your source for that info?

[BrianC14]

3 hours ago, ElkOil said:

What's your source for that info?

You can source me, for one.   I took a foul ball straight into it, just above my left eye.  It bent the cage (titanium), and I had a mild concussion.  And this was in a high school game.  Can't imagine what Danley experienced.  The pitch was recorded at 94 MPH.  The one that got me was nowhere near that, for sure.  

[MadMax]

4 hours ago, tpatience said:

The forehead on the wilson is very weak. Not good at taking direct shots

I would concur with this assessment. While I wouldn't use the adjective "very", I would say that the design has a shortcoming that gets exposed and exploited by the type of forces that 80+ mph brings.

The cage is suspended within those four "Shock" cylinders on the sides of the helmet. The springs have less resistance than the springs on the Force3 Defender HSM, and they are markedly smaller. The anchoring bolts are where the Shock FX fails – there are two, centerline, one at the chin the other at the forehead. They are offset by a rubber bumper each, but only allow for a minute amount of travel. There isn't a tremendous amount of padding in the shell – it ain't a Mizuno Samurai – and the forehead shape is rather bulbous. The two industry -leaders, All-Star and Easton, depend on the pointed shape, the geometry, to deflect most of that force. The Wilson Shock FX presents too large of a edifice to do that. There's something afoot when Gary Cederstrom (at least thru to this year) had a custom cage on his Shock FX with a very prominent forehead extension.

To Wilson's demerit, too, they do not offer a replacement cage, in either Titanium nor Steel. All the other HSM manufacturers of clout do.

Now, certainly, not everyone experiences concussions the same way, and those who have had a concussion before are more likely to experience another, but I would have liked (?... is that a proper word to use) to have seen what may have happened had Danley been wearing an All-Star System 7 or a Force3 Defender HSM.

[tpatience]

5 hours ago, ElkOil said:

What's your source for that info?

From personal testimonials on this site and from talking to people using it. And the custom bucket Cederstrom wore for years 

[Thunderheads]

11 hours ago, ElkOil said:

What's your source for that info?

how about Danley's experience?! How many times as this happened to him wearing the Shock?

[dumbdumb]

Is everyone here taking the same type care, on their own, that MLB does with their umpires on the concussion issue? Is everyone baseline tested pre season like many athletes all the way down to the high school and maybe middle school level. And if you take a good shot, do you go get baseline tested and then stay out for the 1 or 2 weeks or more based on severity like they do at the MLB level?

How is this going (testing on your own dime as an independent contractor) at the professional umpire level calling amateur athletics or even other professional leagues not under the auspices of MLB/MiLB.

After all, the repercussions are the same.

[KenBAZ]

Back to reality, over the past 5 years I've done at minimum 5X the number of plate jobs as any MLB umpire. However the forces involved are just not the same. Doing youth ball, HS, men's league and the occasional college summer ball I get hit more frequently but with pitches that are traveling much slower. I know I am just between injuries at any time. Just no way of knowing what the cumulative effect will be.

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[ElkOil]

2 hours ago, Thunderheads said:

how about Danley's experience?! How many times as this happened to him wearing the Shock?

I don't know.

[Thunderheads]

Just now, ElkOil said:

I don't know.

this is number 4 I believe .......

[ElkOil]

10 hours ago, BrianC14 said:

You can source me, for one.   I took a foul ball straight into it, just above my left eye.  It bent the cage (titanium), and I had a mild concussion.  And this was in a high school game.  Can't imagine what Danley experienced.  The pitch was recorded at 94 MPH.  The one that got me was nowhere near that, for sure.  

That's significant for sure. But without performing a more scientific test, like side-by-side comparisons in a controlled environment, isn't it difficult to say that your injury was due specifically to a shortcoming of the mask that you wouldn't have experienced wearing another?

[ElkOil]

15 hours ago, MadMax said:

but I would have liked (?... is that a proper word to use) to have seen what may have happened had Danley been wearing an All-Star System 7 or a Force3 Defender HSM.

Me too. I agree with your assessment of the mask, as I wear one myself, as do others here. And I have taken a few fouls square to the mush. But unless we have a true comparison, I'd be hesitant to agree with the assertion that the forehead area is "very weak." I have worn a traditional mask on occasion and have been hit. In my very unscientific opinion, I'd rather get hit wearing my Wilson Shock.

And of everyone on this forum, I'll yield to your opinions on this, as I know you to be a student of these things.