May 19, 1998 Contact: Charlotte Crystal (804) 924-6858 RESEARCHERS INVESTIGATING EYE INJURIES URGE YOUTH LEAGUES TO ADOPT SOFTER BASEBALLS It's spring. Flowers are blooming. The air is warm and summer beckons. Now is the time that America renews its annual love affair with baseball. And every year at this time, emergency rooms across the country see a stream of children coming through their doors with head and chest injuries -- many of them serious, a few of them fatal -- caused by America's favorite pastime, baseball. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, more than 137,000 children, ages 5-14, received emergency room treatment for baseball-related injuries in 1996 (the most recent figures available). Between 1973 and 1995, 88 children died from baseball-related injuries; more than 80 percent of the deaths were caused by ball impact. To deal with this problem, baseball manufacturers have developed softer baseballs for use in Little League games. In fact, Worth Inc., of Tullahoma, Tenn., has developed a series of balls of varying softness -- known as reduced injury factor, or RIF, balls. But adoption has been painfully slow. Of the 6 million youth league baseballs in use every spring, only about 10 percent are RIF balls, according to Jess Heald, Worth marketing vice president and creator of the softer balls. The RIF balls, which tend to be favored by parents and young children, are generally in use only for teeball games for the youngest players (4-6 years old), Heald said. Coaches and Little League administrators have resisted adopting the softer balls for other young players, he said. Traditionalists believe softer balls exhibit different physical characteristics than regulation baseballs, thereby altering the nature of the game. But testing by baseball manufacturers has shown that the softer balls behave in virtually the same way as harder balls; the physics of the softer balls -- the "coefficient of restitution" (COR) or bounciness -- are only slightly less than those of regulation baseballs. Opponents of the softer balls also claim there is little proof they actually reduce injuries, with some suggesting they increase eye injuries. That is where research currently underway at the MORE 2 University of Virginia comes into play. Among other things, Stefan Duma, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, and Paul Vinger, an ophthalmologist at Tufts University's School of Medicine, expect their research to demonstrate that softer baseballs, which they believe would reduce head injuries, would not increase the chance of eye injuries. Duma and Vinger have just wrapped up their experiments and submitted their formal results to a peer-reviewed medical journal. Their preliminary results show that: ¥ Except for the very softest baseballs, softer baseballs cannot be distinguished by feel from regulation baseballs, even by professionals. ¥ Softer balls reduce the force of impact on the eye. Even though they intrude farther into the eye orbit than hard baseballs, they do not appear to cause more severe eye injuries. In addition to examining the impact of the ball on the facial bones surrounding the eye, Duma and Vinger also studied whether softer balls penetrated farther into the eye socket than hard balls, causing more serious injuries to the eyeball itself. Such injuries can run from a less severe corneal abrasion; to hyphema, involving a muscle tear and bleeding in the inner eye chamber; to retinal detachment, which may lead to blindness in the affected eye. Their experiments involved building a small, metal box designed to simulate the facial bones surrounding the eye orbit. Duma attached instruments to the box to measure the force of impact. Then, he set up an air cannon to hurl baseballs of varying softness at varying speeds toward the metal box, recording the results on a high-speed digital camera. One series of tests, using the empty box, tracked the extent of penetration of the softer balls into the eye orbit. The second series, using an eye model set into a bed of gelatin to simulate the eyeball lying in soft, fatty tissue, examined the effects of the ball impact on the eye itself. Preliminary results showed that, while the softest balls hit the metal frame with less force than the regulation hard ball, they penetrated farther into the eye orbit. Even so, because they were softer, they did less damage to the eyeball itself. Some of the harder soft balls combined the best of both traits: they hit the metal box with less force than the hard ball, causing potentially less injury to the facial bones, and didn't penetrate into the eye orbit as far as the softest balls, causing potentially less injury to the eye. This indicates that overall, they would cause less severe injuries than those caused by the hard, regulation ball, according to the researchers. While Duma and Vinger have not yet published their final results, they believe the evidence overwhelmingly shows that America's 5,000 Little League teams could reduce head injuries and reduce the pain of impact by adopting softer baseballs. At the same time, their research indicates that eye injuries likely would not increase. Youth baseball teams could adopt the softest balls for MORE 3 use by the youngest players and allow increasingly older players to use progressively harder balls. As some 12-year-old pitchers can throw at 60 to 70 m.p.h., even 12- to-14-year-old ball players likely would experience reduced injuries -- in number and severity -- by using softer balls, the researchers believe. And given that professional ball players can't tell the difference in the "feel" or physics of the harder soft baseballs, using such balls should not place young players at a disadvantage when they move up to regulation hard balls in high school and college, Duma and Vinger believe. This research was supported by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, a non-profit organization that fosters research and encourages the dissemination of research findings on athletic equipment, injury data and other related areas. The opinions in this work are those of the authors and not necessarily endorsed by NOCSAE. ### Editors: Color images are available of the high-speed impact of three balls of varying softness hitting the box at 55 mph. For more information: Stefan Duma, (804) 296-7288; Paul Vinger, (978) 369-1310; Susan Kyle, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, author of "Youth Baseball Protective Equipment Project Final Report, 1996," (301) 504 0580; Michigan State University Institute for the Study of Youth Sport, (517) 353-6689; Lance Van Auken, spokesman, Little League Baseball Inc., Williamsport, Pa., (the Little League is in the first year of a three-year study of the adoption of softer baseballs), (717) 326-1921, x-264; Trey Crisco, director of research, National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE), Providence, R.I., (401) 444-4677; National Youth Sports Safety Foundation, Needham, Mass., (781) 449-2499; Fred Mueller, professor of physical education, UNC-Chapel Hill, (in the second year of a two-year study of safety equipment and baseball injuries, sponsored by major league baseball), (919) 962-5171; Jess Heald, marketing vice president and creator of RIF balls for Worth Inc., (931) 455-0691. U.Va. online: http://www.virginia.edu/topnews