Is this another facemask thread?
I was reading an article on the internet yesterday regarding professional athlete career ending injuries. If I read the article correctly, there were at least two MLB athletes that ended their professional careers due to pitched baseballs striking them in the unprotected face. Kirby Puckett was one of the athletes that I read about and there was another player, which I hadn't heard about, named Tony Conigliaro. Both players left MLB because they couldn't see well enough to bat after the injuries to the face by a pitched baseball.
I think that the face guard on the batting helmet is good for girls softball and beyond.
When my dd started playing softball in college, she was given the choice by her coach to wear a batting helmet with a face guard or a batting helmet without a face guard. After her 1st fall ball game, she was introducing several of her teammates to me while eating fruits and other snacks available between games. She told me that her coach had given her a choice of face guard or no face guard on the batting helmet. She asked me what I thought and I told her that she had just played in a game where their lefty pitcher had just delivered a rise ball into the faceguard of an opposing batter. The gal got up and went to 1st base and continued to play. I told her that if that gal wasn't wearing a face guard, that she'd still be waiting for the medical people to remove her from the softball field.
I watched that lefty pitcher strike at least four more batters in the face guard that season with the up an in rise ball to right-handed batters Luckily, all the girls that she hit, were wearing a face guard on the batting helmet. Coincidentally, every one of her team mates that was in ear shot of our conversation on that fall ball day wore a face guard on their batting helmet.
If my DD tells me she is not going to wear a faceguard on her batting helmet in college there is going to be consequences...no phone, no laptop, no car, no food. We have over $5K invested in her smile and don't get me started on the potential problems with brain, eyes, cheekbones, ect.