It's a matter of which way the batter hits, Chris. Most batters are
standing right of the plate from the pitcher's POV, and so the swing of the
bat tends to drive the ball anywhere from straight out (towards the
pitcher) to the left (towards third base), depending on how early the
batter began swinging, and therefore how far into the swing's arc the bat
was before connecting with the ball. Couple that with the very flat, fast
trajectory of a line drive and pitchers and third basemen are likely
(inadvertent) targets. To get the ball to fly towards first base would have
required the batter to swing late in the first place, and the later the
swing started to more likely is a miss.
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 1:46 PM, ChrisB <ftog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I know little about baseball or softball; is the batter likely to be
> aiming at these fielders?
>
> Chris
>
> > On 2 Dec 2014, at 21:41, Scott Gomez <sgomez.baja@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > I did some Internet sleuthing. Apparently there have been an increasing
> > number of girls (especially) being hit in the face with line drives in
> > softball. Many of those hit have been quite seriously injured. At least
> one
> > article said it was because pitcher's mound has been recently relocated
> to
> > be about a yard further from the plate, which means batters have more
> time
> > to react and are getting more (and more powerful) hits.
> >
> > Regardless, batter's face masks, and, increasingly the open masks like
> > those pictured are being recommended for girl's softball for batter, 1st
> > base, 3rd base and pitcher. Especially 3rd base and the pitcher, who are
> > the most likely to be struck by a line drive.
>
> --
> _________________________________________________________________
> Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
> Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
> Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
>
>
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|