NOCSAE Catchers Gear Rules 2020

[radness]

Interesting info in the article. 95% of cases of Commotio Cordis involve boys who are 10-18. That means in the past 25 years it’s affected less than one female athlete a year. That’s in all sports. It seems rather silly spending all this money creating NOCSAE standards for a problem that doesn’t exist in softball.

Yes interesting.
Would like to know why it would differ from gender?
Where did test/result numbers come from also?
Perhaps statistics of % in each gender participating or?

Good reads!

 

[bmakj]

another issue that makes the physics / math harder is the size of the ball. larger softballs spreads out the force of impact over a larger area.

think of getting hit with a football, which way hurts more, end on or sideways?

that math/physics is above my pay grade thought to try and figure out.

 

[The Man In Blue]

Interesting info in the article. 95% of cases of Commotio Cordis involve boys who are 10-18. That means in the past 25 years it’s affected less than one female athlete a year. That’s in all sports. It seems rather silly spending all this money creating NOCSAE standards for a problem that doesn’t exist in softball.

According to that article, softball is the #2 sport for occurrences. Possibly boys’/men’s softball?

I am curious to see the breakdown of the data (just because I am a curious person). However, I cannot find the raw data. When looking up the cited “U.S. Commotio Cordis Registry” I just end up at a generic page on the NFHS website.

The article I posted cites 225+ cases since 1995. That is somewhere just above 9 cases per year.

Here are the things I am curious about:

1) What percentage of incidents are catchers? Pitchers? Other positions, batters, etc. (Every incident I have heard of has been a pitcher or a fielder. Granted, that is only a handful.)

2) What percentage occurred during organized sports? (This actually happened to a neighbor of my grandparents when I was a kid ... he was playing in his own yard with a few other kids.)

3) What is the breakdown by sport? The article states: “The sport with the highest incidence of commotio cordis is baseball, followed by softball, hockey, football, soccer and lacrosse.“ It makes sense to target the highest, but why skip everything in between and then go to the lowest? Especially when #2 is essentially the same sport as #1 (in vague terms).

 

[The Man In Blue]

Search a little differently ... duh ...

Not raw data, but ...

January 2016: https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/902504-clinical

According to the latest reported data from US Commotio Cordis Registry, at the time of the incident, 53% of persons struck were engaged in organized competitive athletics. The remainder were involved in normal daily activities (23%) or recreational sports (24%)

 

[The Man In Blue]

Another interesting question:

What is the breakdown of incidents over time?

A March 2009 article cites “more than 190 cases”. That leaves us with approximately 35 over the last 11 years, or just over 3 per year. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23015869

Since then RIF balls have been introduced and AEDs have become much more common place, evidently greatly slowing the numbers of victims.

Ouch ... Page 3 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445066/

Protection has improved through the use of softer baseballs in youth leagues. Commercially available chest protectors, however, are not effective.4

 

[The Man In Blue]

The links in my post directly above are very interesting, but just over a decade old.

Page 9 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445066/#!po=23.3333

Doerer et al and Weinstock et al have demonstrated the shortcomings of chest protectors.4,24 Nearly half of CC cases (85 of 182, or 47%) occurred during organized competition, and 38% (32 of 85) of these victims were wearing chest protectors. In 78% of the chest protector incidents (25 of 32), the device was not covering the precordium at the time of impact. This malpositioning can happen if a player raises his or her hands over his or her head. Of the 7 athletes hit directly on the chest protector, 3 were lacrosse goalies, 2 were baseball catchers, and 2 were hockey goalies.21 Only 13% of the victims (4 of 32) who were wearing chest protectors survived the CC episode. Consequently, protective athletic equipment must be evaluated and tested carefully.

A Link et al study (using a swine model) revealed that commercially available chest protectors— specifically, those marketed for use in baseball and lacrosse—did not prevent CC. They had roughly the same likelihood of inducing VF as that of control impacts, in which animals had no chest protection (Figures 4 and and55).24

Also having the potential to reduce CC events are changes in rules (eg, eliminating chest blocking of shots by defenders in lacrosse) and in coaching (eg, teaching techniques to shield the chest).

Wasnt @RADcatcher promoting catching the ball over blocking it?

 

[The Man In Blue]

Yes interesting.
Would like to know why it would differ from gender?
Where did test/result numbers come from also?
Perhaps statistics of % in each gender participating or?

Good reads!

From the links I posted, it seems as if there is not a medical reason that they can find, though pliability of the chest is a possibility.

I am with you on a more likely explanation though: sheer numbers. So the numbers for boys would traditionally be higher than girls. Although, you would think with more girls playing sports, those numbers would be trending up proportionally in more recent years.

Again, I’d like to see breakdowns over time that show patterns.

 

[Lemond]

another issue that makes the physics / math harder is the size of the ball. larger softballs spreads out the force of impact over a larger area.

think of getting hit with a football, which way hurts more, end on or sideways?

that math/physics is above my pay grade thought to try and figure out.

That, and the fact that boys in that age range tend to have less body fat protecting the rib cage than their female counterparts. So any shot to the ribs is not much removed from being ball-on-bone contact, and any impact to the ribcage in the general area of the heart would deliver the impact similarly, where a shot slightly left or right of center for a female athlete would provide greater dissipation of the impact force.

 

[radness]

Wasnt @RADcatcher promoting catching the ball over blocking it?

Thank you, Yes!
No need to get hit by the ball when we dont have to!

 

[The Man In Blue]

That, and the fact that boys in that age range tend to have less body fat protecting the rib cage than their female counterparts. So any shot to the ribs is not much removed from being ball-on-bone contact, and any impact to the ribcage in the general area of the heart would deliver the impact similarly, where a shot slightly left or right of center for a female athlete would provide greater dissipation of the impact force.

At the risk of tarnishing my already oxidized reputation ... in your medical opinion, the answer is “boobs”?