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Baseball’s most dangerous play also happens to be one of its rarest and least preventable. The comeback line drive, zooming straight to a pitcher’s noggin, may only happen a few times every season. But when it happens, it is gruesome. Blood oozes from where the ball’s seams first meet flesh. In some cases, the pitcher loses consciousness.

Despite the horror, line drives to the face are a very rare occurrence. As Dan Jennings of Forbes writes, one in every 300,000 pitches results results in a line drive directly at the pitcher’s head. 99.5% of pitchers are unaffected.

While no deaths by comebackers have occurred in the MLB, the potential for a fatal blow looms. There have been several deaths in professional cricket, a game which, by my limited understanding, is composed primarily of line drives up the middle.

It’s hard to imagine an all-encompassing solution, but Unequal Technologies is looking to remove some of the risk of comebacker-induced head injuries. The have produced a lightweight kevlar-lined insert that goes inside of the pitchers’ hat, and at least 6 Chicago White Sox pitchers are using them.

The jury is still out on whether the cap inserts are worth using. Unequal reports that the inserts tested well against 83 mph line drives, which is the average speed of a line drive, but not the average speed of an unavoidable, indefensible bullet of a line drive like the one that hit Carlos Carrasco on Tuesday night.

Still, if it could help, and we don’t know that it doesn’t help, why not give your dome that extra 5 1/2 ounces of protection if it could save your life?

Earlier this week, former kicker Lawrence Tynes announced that he is suing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for $20 million. He is accusing the team of neglecting to maintain sanitary team facilities, leading to the spread of an antibiotic-resistant strain of staph called MRSA, which infected Tynes and two other players.

Tynes is the first player to sue, but he is far from the first player to contract staph from an NFL locker room. Five St. Louis Rams got the infection in 2003. Six Cleveland Browns got it between 2005 and 2008. When, in 2008, Kellen Winslow II was diagnosed with staph for the second time, he accused the team of (1) unclean facilities and (2) trying to cover up his diagnosis. Winslow was suspended one game, and since then, no active player has spoken up about it.

The issue of staph in the NFL brings up an interesting question: is the spread of bacterial infection inevitable in an environment where scraped-up, sweaty, spitting, snorting, high-fiving men share showers, lockers, and benches? Or, as Winslow and Tynes have claimed, are facilities managers and trainers failing to take the necessary steps to at least curtail the spread of infectious bacteria?

In defense of team employees, staph is a disease that could still spread among players even if team facilities were sterile as a hospital and players showered in disinfectant. Staph is a bacteria that lives on the skin. The slightest scrape or turf burn could allow the bacteria to enter the bloodstream, where it often does irreversible damage.

Winslow and Tynes may have a point, however. Our best evidence is from when the Rams reached out the Center for Disease Control to investigate how staph was spreading and what they could do to prevent it. Researchers pointed out several shortcomings on the team’s behalf. Players would share towels during games. They weren’t required to shower before hitting the communal whirlpool. And too often, team trainers weren’t equipped with rubbing alcohol and failed to cover up cuts.

Whether or not conditions have improved significantly between 2003, when the Rams study was conducted, and 2013, when Tynes and two teammates contracted MRSA, teams will now certainly do their utmost to sanitize their facilities. The threat of a multi-million dollar lawsuit should be enough to scare any owner into making some substantial improvements.

After running nearly 2000 impact tests on 32 of the most popular hockey helmets, Virginia Tech researcher Stefan Duma came to some startling conclusions about the helmets’ effectiveness. Duma, who conducted a similar study on football helmets in 2011, found that almost all helmets were unsatisfactory in softening the impact of a concussion-inducing blow.

Based on the test results, Duma graded the 32 helmets on a 0-5 star scale. Only one helmet, the Warrior Crown 360, received a 3 star or “good” rating. From there, 6 helmets were given 2 stars or “adequate,” 16 received 1 star, and 9 got no stars at all. As a point of reference, in Duma’s 2011 study of football helmets, 20 of 26 helmets received 4 or 5 stars. Duma estimates that switching from a 1 star helmet to a 5 star can reduce concussions by up to 50%.

Duma’s recommendation is to make hockey helmets bigger and more like football helmets to allow for more cushioning.

The upside is that we can expect change. Duma’s first study led to a number of follow-up studies and substantial improvements to helmet design. Now that this highly publicized study has created demand for a more protective hockey helmet, look for helmet manufacturers to follow suit and produce some helmets that do what they’re supposed to do.

For more on Duma’s methods, check out the following video from Bloomberg Business:

The NFL owners meeting in Phoenix, AZ has failed to reach a consensus on several big issues, but they did manage to agree on a few big rule changes for player safety. After a slew of rule changes in recent years protecting quarterbacks and wide receivers, owners are now turning their focus towards protecting vulnerable defensive players.

The following is an overview of the five rule changes, and whether they will matter.

THE MEDICAL TIMEOUT

A certified athletic trainer will have the authority to stop play and evaluate an injury with a medical timeout.

Should we care?

Yes. Before Wednesday’s rule change, only the head coach and the players on the field had the power of the TO. Even after what seems to be an injurious hit, players’ and coaches’ immediate concern is the next play. For them, timeouts are too valuable to waste on a maybe-maybe-not concussion.

By giving an independent trainer the power to stop play, a coach’s interest in keeping a drive’s momentum going no longer supersedes his interest in player safety.

If this rule was already in effect, we likely would not have seen a woozy Julian Edelman finishing out the drive for the Patriots after getting rocked by Kam Chancellor in the Super Bowl.

NO PEEL-BACK BLOCKS OUTSIDE OF THE BOX

In 2013, NFL owners agreed to outlaw the peel-back block within the tackle box. This meant that an offensive lineman or back could not let a defender by him, only to take his legs out from under him. This rule was inspired by Matt Slauson’s season-ending hit on Brian Cushing in 2012. This new addendum does not seem to have been inspired by a particular injury, but could prevent heat-seeking receiver/blockers in the mold of Hines Ward from chopping down an unsuspecting defensive back.

Should we care?

Probably not. Blocking receivers like Ward usually hit high when they sneak up on d-backs. However, with high hits being increasingly penalized, one could see why a receiver would look to take a defender’s legs out from under him. It’s a smart preventative measure, but don’t expect to see it called very frequently in the coming season.

BACKS CAN’T CHOP ENGAGED DEFENSIVE PLAYER OUTSIDE THE TACKLE BOX

In another measure to protect vulnerable defensive backs and linebackers, running backs may no longer take out the legs of a defender already engaged with an offensive blocker.

Should we care?

Yeah. While this mouthful of a rule will also rarely be called, it eliminates the possibility of a defensive player sustaining a completely unnecessary season ending ACL tear.

NO HITTING DEFENSELESS RECEIVERS AFTER AN INTERCEPTION

Prowling safeties may no longer hit a receiver post-interception under the guise of a pass defender.

Should we care?

Eh. Receivers are already quite well protected, and this situation seems pretty rare as well.

NO PUSHING TEAMMATES DURING PUNTS OR FIELD GOALS

Say goodbye to rugby scrums at the line of scrimmage during field goals. Hard to see the major safety implications for this one.

Should we care?

Yes. This rule will be tough to enforce, as there is a fine line between pushing your teammate and charging at the opponent. The rule will be fodder for many a call-in radio show if it is ends up reversing a game winning field goal or turning a punt into a first down.

Professional athletes’ relentless quest for a competitive advantage is once again pushing science towards new frontiers.

We have long known that getting a bad night’s sleep can throw us off for days to come. For athletes and laypeople alike, sleep deprivation leaves us feeling unfocused, impatient, and physically weak.

It took a while for someone to hypothesize: if lack of sleep is so detrimental, then extra sleep should be beneficial.

Cheri Mah, a Stanford sleep researcher, was the first one to seriously examine the benefits of optimal sleep or “sleep extension.” Her subjects happened to be athletes. The results were staggering, by sleeping slightly more than enough, athletes became faster and more accurate. Their reaction times improved as they became less prone to mid-game exhaustion.

Collegiate and professional basketball players are known for putting emphasis on sleep, often napping 2-3 hours during the afternoon of a game day. However, Mah says that this sort of luxurious napping can actually have detrimental effects, leaving the player feeling groggy. Mah suggests that a 20-30 minute power nap is much more beneficial, providing the restorative benefits to the mind and body without the grogginess that deep REM sleep induces.

For more, read Mah’s interview with fellow sleep advocate Arianna Huffington,  and check out this awesome infographic based on Mah’s research:

NFL free agency is upon us, and, as usual, dozens of players we hardly knew are cashing in for multi-year multi-million dollar contracts. Beneath the free agency headlines, however, are the less glamorous retirement headlines.

Most years, retirement news is hardly news at all. Hobbled veterans well into their thirties start to lose a step and don’t generate as much interest as they’d hoped on the free agent market, so they hang it up for good.

This year, however, a few NFL retirements have not fit that mold. Patrick Willis, Jason Worilds, and Jake Locker all could have signed lucrative multi-year deals this week, had they chosen to continue their careers.

Out of the three, Willis had the most serious injury. He has had toe problems since college, and aggravated the injury last season, requiring surgery. Still, this likely would not have been a major deterrent for the many teams in need of an elite linebacker.

We may be witnessing an awakening. Willis, Worilds, and Locker have likely seen and talked to dozens of veterans who came before them. Veterans who can’t comfortably chase their kids around the backyard, or who can’t remember their addresses. Veterans who would give back their last three-year contracts just to sleep through the night pain-free.

As Grantland’s Bill Barnwell phrased it, “their logic might be shifting from getting as much as possible for as long as possible to getting enough before getting out.”

Twelve years ago this week, Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler collapsed on the field after suffering a heat stroke at the Orioles’ spring training facility in Florida. Doctors were unable to resuscitate Bechler, whose body temperature had soared up to 108 degrees.

Weeks later, the medical examiner determined that a weight loss drug containing ephedra, a Chinese herb used for weight loss and mental stimulant, played a significant role in the young pitcher’s death.

At this point, the harmful effects of ephedra were very much part of the public discourse, though efforts for a nationwide ban were stymied by Big Pharma’s lobbying efforts. There were stories like Bechler’s. An army base banned the use of ephedra-containing weight loss pills after a dozen soldiers in training died as a result of using the drug. A Long Island, NY county banned its sale after a student’s ephedra-related death. In 2001, Korey Stringer of the Minnesota Vikings died of heat stroke at training camp after using ephedra to control his weight, though the medical examiner was not as ardent that ephedra was to blame.

Although Metabolife, the nation’s biggest producer of ephedra supplements, had received over 14,000 complaints about the drug’s ill effects, a bipartisan congressional committee shut down the FDA’s efforts to make producers of ephedra supplents display ample warning about its side effects on the product’s label. In 2000, the FDA, in turn, withdrew its proposed labelling changes.

With the public spotlight on ephedrine’s role in Bechler’s “preventable death,” the FDA doubled down on its efforts to regulate ephedrine. This time, the agency proposed to ban the drug outright. The FDA found support on Capitol Hill from many who initially resisted the labelling change. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who wrote the 1999 bill questioning the FDA’s claims against ephedra, this time changed his tone, saying: “it has been obvious to even the most casual observer that problems exist.”

That casual observer Hatch referenced probably was not paying attention to the ephedra battle in 1999, but now, with the story being aired and debated on ESPN, the casual observer had a stake in it too. By the end of 2003, Ephedra was banned altogether.

The case of Steve Bechler, while tragic, has set the precedent for sports medicine as an agent for change.