Big league pitchers might feel safer on the mound this season.
Major League Baseball has approved a protective cap for pitchers, hoping to reduce the damage from line drives to the head that have brought some terrifying and bloody scenes in the last few years.
The heavier and bigger new hat was introduced Tuesday and will be available for testing during spring training on a voluntary basis. Major leaguers and minor leaguers won’t be required to wear it — comfort is likely to be a primary concern.
“Obviously, it’d be a change,” two-time Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers told the MLB Network. “I’m definitely not opposed to it.
“I think it’d take a lot of getting used to,” he said. “You don’t look very cool, I’ll be honest.”
The safety plates made by isoBLOX are sewn into the hat and custom fitted. They weigh an extra six to seven ounces — a baseball weighs about five ounces, by comparison — and offer protection to the forehead, temples and sides of the head. They will make the hats about a half-inch thicker in the front and around an inch wider on the sides.
Several pitchers have been hit in the head by line drives recently. Brandon McCarthy sustained a brain contusion and skull fracture after being struck in 2012 and Doug Fister was hit during the World Series that October.
Toronto’s J.A. Happ and Tampa Bay’s Alex Cobb were sidelined after being hit last year.
McCarthy tweeted he already had tried out the fortified cap and that it was “headed in right direction but not game ready.”
In an email to The Associated Press, he said, “If you’re not 100 percent focused on executing your pitches, you have almost no chance of success. And that hat is uncomfortable enough that it would be a big distraction to wear it.”