And don't forget the sunblock!

Exposure to the sun's rays when you're young can come back to haunt you decades later as melanoma, and other forms of skin cancer.

I write from experience.

While baseball can mandate helmets to protect you from batted or thrown balls, only parents' common sense can drill the use of sunblock into your game regimen.

Forewarned...

Mandating helmets for MLB coaches will almost certainly help move this trend down the line to high school and college teams. Baseball has for decades maintained a hidebound, traditional culture. Nostalgia is an essential part of the game's allure, probably more so than the other major sports. When did they start playing night games at Wrigley Field?

It won't be immediate, but the only way to change unsafe traditions is at the top.

This is a heartfelt post, but it ignores the fact that a helmet would not have saved Mike Coolbaugh. He was hit in the neck.

The issue is likely not one of vanity, or even tradition, but one of comfort. The coach wants to focus on the game and anything that is the least bit uncomfortable can be a distraction. I'm a high-school umpire and I would prefer not to wear a hardhat, at least when working the bases.

This is the knee-jerk PR move that happens after almost any tragedy. That doesn't make it a bad thing. But it's impossible to prevent everything with a .001% chance of occurrence from happening. Wearing helmets is a commendable idea, but I guess I don't understand your disbelief as to why some people would like to see the rule be optional. It's really not that big a deal.

Plus the helmets worn in pro ball don’t have earflaps. Will we have to go thru all of this discussion again when some guy wearing the hardhat takes a line drive in the earlobe? Where does it end?

There's no question, having coaches wear helmets would be a relatively cheap and easy way to significantly lower the risk of injury from a blow to the head. But it makes perfect sense that people choose not to do it. There are plenty of cheap, easy ways we could further safeguard ourselves in our daily lives--in fact, wearing helmets on the street would protect us from any number of dangers, most notably those posed by moving cars. Those risks are real, and they seem even more real after a tragedy like the one that befell Mike Coolbaugh. But those risks are also small, so we don't take the easy precautions. If we tried to defend ourselves from every risk, I suspect we wouldn't be very happy.

But I'm with Larry--we're much better off focusing not on the dramatic but miniscule risks, but on those that put millions of us in peril every day without anybody noticing.

I agree that coaches should wear some type of protective head covering. I also feel that baseball needs to do a better job protecting fans from foul balls. Baseball parks are only required to protect the most dangerous part of the stadium (usually described as the area behind home plate) and have enough screened seats for those who might want them (called the limited duty rule). However, there is no proof that the backstop screens in the new "up-close" stadiums are in fact protecting the most dangerous part of the ballpark (usually down the first and third base lines) or that regular fans can obtain screened seats.
Gil Fried
Professor
University of New Haven

OK we have to wear them but where can we buy them. I can't find them anywhere.