Dr. Frederick O. Mueller Testimony
August 23, 2006

DR. FREDERICK MUELLER TESTIMONY BEFORE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE

Dr. Frederick O. Mueller, Director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, testified about batted ball injuries in baseball before a Massachusetts Legislature Joint Committee on Public Health on August 23, 2006 in Boston. The NCCSI collects catastrophic (fatalities and permanent disability) injury data for high school and college athletes on a national level. The center has been in existence since 1982 and is funded annually by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

Dr. Mueller testified that:

• Over 23 collegiate baseball seasons stretching from 1982-2004, there were four (4) catastrophic batted ball injuries to pitchers, with one disability and three recoveries. There were 500,000 participants in college baseball over that time span. (That calculates to a batted ball injury rate to college players during this period of .000008)

• Over 23 high school baseball seasons stretching from 1982-2004, there were ten (10) catastrophic batted ball injuries to pitchers, with 4 disability, 4 recovery, and 2 unknown. There were 9 million participant high school players over that time span. (That calculates to a batted ball injury rate to high school players during this period of .0000011)

• Over 10 Little League Baseball seasons studied from 1987-1996, there were 17,221,210 participants. There were 1,022 batted ball injuries to the pitcher. (That calculates to a batted ball injury rate to Little League pitchers during this period of .0000593). Dr. Mueller testified that there was one (1) death during this time from a batted ball.

Dr. Mueller also testified that the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research is now conducting the only research ever done comparing college batted ball injuries to the pitcher from aluminum bats and comparing that to college summer league batted ball injuries to the pitcher from wood bats. Dr. Mueller stated, “We have just completed two years of data collection and our problem is that there are so few pitchers being hit by a batted ball that it is difficult to look at statistically. Our one catastrophic injury was from a wood bat.”