Injury Scout - Joe West Bloodied by Bat, Leaves DC

[Lindsay]

HP Umpire Joe West left Thursday's game in Washington, DC after being bloodied by a flying bat early on. In the bottom of the 1st inning of the Nationals-Blue Jays game (Toronto as the home team), Jays batter Bo Bichette swung and fouled a first-pitch fastball from Nationals pitcher Erick Fedde,...

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[Umpire in Chief]

I saw @Razzer posting about this last night on FB. I'm glad to read Ray has spoken to Joe and he is doing well.

My thought is regardless of any and all precautions it is going to take a small army to keep West off the field. One one hand I completely admire it, on the other I hope not only Joe, but others who have this tough as nails mindset don't do themselves more harm by persevering through things like this. 

[Razzer]

He is a grinder for sure and he was more interested in talking about what I was doing. Just shook it off where many umpires would have took the rest of the day off.

I read him some of the comments and support he was getting on the UL FB Page and he just laughed and could not believe it. He is is legend and a true pro who thought of his crew and the game before himself.

Tough as nails and proud to call him a friend.

[stkjock]

Tough MFer

[Vegas_Ump]

We have few thrown bat threads here.  And this one at least demonstrates the risks involved and could be instructive for coaches at all levels.

Mike

[dumbdumb]

Just like those head on tackling drills from back in his days at East Carolina and Elon. Joe was a safety (and those guys aren't slow) on the East Carolina freshman team, as freshmen could not play varsity back in the day, before going to Elon and playing quarterback.

I am told that back in the old days those coaches just loved, loved, loved the head on tackling drills and that very loud popping sound of two guys going full speed into each other helmut to helmut. They got off on that. The louder that possible future with CTE  sound was, the more they loved it and gave you a thumbs up for being a real man and hard nosed player and grabbed their eternal respect.

Hopefully Joe, out of an abundance of caution was given an on site concussion evaluation and maybe even another one after the game.

Glad he seems to be all right.

[BT_Blue]

15 hours ago, dumbdumb said:

I am told that back in the old days those coaches just loved, loved, loved the head on tackling drills and that very loud popping sound of two guys going full speed into each other helmut to helmut. They got off on that. The louder that possible future with CTE  sound was, the more they loved it and gave you a thumbs up for being a real man and hard nosed player and grabbed their eternal respect.

The old "Oklahoma" Drill.