Sports Medicine
By John Doherty
Five years ago during the IHSAA Class 4A baseball semifinal between Munster and Logansport, it started to thunder and lightning. When one flash and subsequent rumble got particularly close, I turned to an IHSAA official in the Munster dugout and voiced my concern. He replied that if it wasn't such a big game, the game would have already been stopped.
Whereupon I said, "I didn't know lightning could tell the difference."
The comment wasn't appreciated. Nor was it intended to be. Much like lightning, the object after which the game is named is something else that "can't tell the difference."
To paraphrase a general giving a Pentagon briefing during the Gulf War, when asked about friendly fire: once a baseball leaves a hand or a bat, it doesn't have any friends.
Two families found out all too well this past weekend.
On Saturday night at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas, with friends and family at his side, Sammy Sosa was honored prior to the game for hitting his 600th career home run on June 20. Following the pre-game ceremony, he struck out in his first at-bat before the ball struck him his second time up -- in the head. He dropped like a rock. Fortunately, he had a helmet on, and while he missed the rest of the game, he was still able to walk away.
One night later, one state over, Tulsa Drillers first base coach Mike Coolbaugh didn't have a helmet on and didn't walk away.
Coolbaugh, 35, a baseball lifer who played briefly in the big leagues in 2000 and 2001, had just joined the Colorado Rockies' AA affiliate on July 3 as a hitting coach.
According to eyewitness accounts, Coolbaugh was struck on the forehead or right side of the head by a line drive during the top of the ninth inning of a game being hosted by the Arkansas Travelers in North Little Rock. He collapsed immediately. North Little Rock police said Coolbaugh was still alive when placed in the ambulance but stopped breathing just as the ambulance pulled up to Baptist Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
Coolbaugh leaves two young children and his wife, Mandy, who is expecting their third child.
One wonders if this story would have had a different ending if Coolbaugh had been wearing a helmet.
Was it 20/20 hindsight? Not really. For years I've thought the high school rule that a helmet be on players who are coaching first base was a bit ridiculous. Not because of what it required but what it didn't. Those teenagers in the first base box have far better reflexes then their managers on the opposite side of the diamond. My friends who manage high school baseball may not think it looks cool to wear a helmet while standing in the third base coach's box but it is a far better alternative than ending up like Coolbaugh.
John Doherty is a certified athletic trainer and licensed physical therapist. This column reflects solely his opinion. Reach him at ptatcsport@sbcglobal.net.
