Major rule changes in sports don’t come along often, but when they do, it’s usually because of incidents involving high profile athletes. The words Tuck Rule and Tom Brady have become synonymous, and just two years ago, Major League Baseball announced that home-plate collisions would be banned after one of their biggest up-and-coming stars suffered a gruesome injury during a collision.
That player was Buster Posey, and he was attempting to block home plate when he was railroaded by Scott Cousins. You can see video of the play below.
Posey ended up rupturing ligaments in his ankle and breaking a bone in his leg, and the injury caused Major League Baseball to re-evaluate catcher safety. The banning of home-plate collisions would become known as the Buster Posey rule, but are home plate collisions really the source of foot and ankle injuries for most catchers?
Catching Study
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine teamed up with two trainers from the Baltimore Orioles to determine if collisions really were the most detrimental part of a baseball game for a catcher’s health. It turns out, if Major League Baseball really wanted to prevent foot and ankle injuries in catchers, they’d reevaluate their protection during at-bats.
The 10-year study published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine revealed that fewer than 15 percent of injuries sustained by catchers occurred during home plate contact with another player. In fact, these types of injuries were often neither season-ending nor career-ending, and they generally required shorter recovery times than other types of injuries.
“Our results indicate that while well-intended, the league’s current efforts to reduce contact injuries among catchers may be overlooking other types of trauma among this subgroup that tend to inflict more physical harm and lead to more loss of game time,” says senior investigator Edward McFarland, professor of orthopaedic surgery at Johns Hopkins.
According to the study, of the 134 reported injuries to catchers between 2001 and 2010, 114 occurred without a collision with a baserunner. Here’s a look at some more findings from the study:
- The average time missed for a non-collision injury was 53 days, compared to 39 days for collision injuries.
- 19 injuries – none of which resulted from a collision injury – required more than 100 days for full recovery.
- The most common cause of catcher injury was a blow to the head by a bat or foul ball.
- The most frequent non-collision catcher injury was an injury to the leg (28 percent) and to the knee (23 percent).
- The most frequent collision catcher injury was an injury to the knee (40 percent) and ankle (30 percent).
- Of the 11 concussions suffered by catchers during the study, nine occurred during non-player collision.
- A non-collision concussion needed 54 days on average for full recovery, compared to 16 days for concussions resulting from a collision.
First author Kelly Kilcoyne concluded that recent rule changes didn’t get to the heart of the matter.
“While recent rule changes were implemented to prevent catcher injuries, the focus of these changes is not supported by the findings of our study,” said Kilcoyne. “Further investigation and in-depth analysis can inform optimal strategies to mitigate and prevent injuries among this particular category of players.”