The United States has not ever embraced a sport quite like it did with the sport that we know today as "America's Pastime." Today, baseball is a widely popular sport around the world. In fact, Major League Baseball is seeing more and more players from Japan, the Caribbean Islands, and South America. The competition to make it pro in the sport is like no other, and the risks along the way become greater and greater. Standing in the batter's box with a ball traveling at over 95 mph right by you calls for a great deal of risk. Not only does the pitch cause a great deal of risk for the batter, but the batter pose a risk to all nine fielders on the opposing team. When a pitcher throws the pitch and the hitter hits the ball, the ball is traveling at an extremely fast pace, which can lead to injury to other players, umpires, or spectators enjoying a day at the ballpark. Over recent years, there have been rule changes in amateur leagues to reduce the number of baseball related injuries (Wehrwein, 2011). This change that took place had to do with the construction of aluminum bats. Before 2011, the bats that were permitted throughout all amateur leagues had to be BESR (Ball Exit Speed Ratio) (Russell, 2012). With the new and improving technology, these BESR certified bats started to produce ball speeds that were very dangerous to everybody involved. In order to reduce the number of injuries and liability for these bat companies, a new kind of bat was constructed. This new technology is called BBCOR (Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution) (Russell, 2012). Since BBCOR bats have been in place throughout all amateur leagues around the country, there has been a significant decrease in the number of home runs hit, which means that the ball speed off of the bat is significantly less (Russell, 2012). Even though this change in technology has helped reduce the liability in baseball, this does not mean that there is no risk involved in the game.
