Tulsa 1B coach Mike Coolbaugh killed by line drive

Photo guy for a Minnesota paper (I think) got drilled by an overthrow several years ago and almost died. I read a story about his situation on this very site.

The Microville stadium has several rows of seats very close to the field; I won't sit in them after watching people get drilled by a line drive. Even though they were paying attention, the ball just gets there too fast.

Baseball coach at Wazzu used to wear a helmet on the field at all times (he'd been badly beaned once). So did John Olerud, after his anyurism (SP?). Might not be a bad idea for base coaches, either.

 

RIP Mike.

 

So awful...

RIP.

 

John Olerud always wore a no-earflaps batting helmet in the field when he played first base just to prevent this sort of thing from happening. However, I'm not certain there was one particular incident that led him to that choice; I do know at some point he had a brain aneurysm but I'm not sure if it was baseball-related or not.

 

The Little Rock paper has most of its stuff behind a paywall.
But they also operate some other sites, and a fuller story can be found here.
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Sports/196468/

 

Actually, that "one particular incident" was the aneurysm he sustained in college, at Wazzu. A blow to Olerud's unprotected head -- even one not as hard as Coolbaugh's line drive -- could have killed him, so he wore the helmet as protection.

Coolbaugh was terribly unlucky. This happens more than people know, but it's rarely fatal. Your skull protects you more often than not. He must have gotten hit in exactly the wrong spot, which is unspeakably tragic.

I was hit right above the eye playing first base in high school; a low line drive off a metal bat hit the lip of the grass and shot straight up into my face. My eye was swollen shut for three days and the aftereffects of the concussion -- a constant pounding migraine, mostly -- lasted more than a month. They said if I had been hit less than an inch lower, it would have shattered my orbital bones and caused major damage.

Still, mine was never life-threatening -- Coolbaugh never had a chance. That's what makes it so sad.

And for the record, I vote no on base coaches wearing batting helmets. That's a knee-jerk reaction to a situation that was an accident. Accidents happen. You can't protect everybody from everything.

 

olerud wore the helmet because of the aneurism.

i should have offered my r.i.p., first and foremost. but i still find it unusual that he wasn't able to dodge the foul ball. once the pitch is delivered, a first-base coach has nothing to do but watch the batter, imo. i've coached enough little league and been to enough big-league games to understand this and know this is unheard of. man, this wasn't a random accident during b.p. i just think there must have been something else at work, no? ??? ??? ???

an awful, awful story. :'( :'( :'(

 

It was his first coaching gig, and he'd been doing it less than three weeks. I don't know if anyone was on base or not. Maybe he was sending the runner and watching. Maybe he heard something. He must have been looking at the field, or turned his head that way, to get hit in the left temple.

 

Hey, Rickey Henderson remembers playing with some dude who wore a batting helmet while on the field.

 

It would be a knee-jerk reaction to force base coaches to wear a helmet, I agree.

I also think any base coach would be smart to wear one, at least with one protective flap. I think a lot of wives/girlfriends will be asking their husbands about that tonight, and so may their kids.

It was a terrible, freak accident, and I stress accident, a one in a million shot, for sure. But the next guy who gets hit in the same place, and it will happen again sometime, given the tremendous amount of games that are played at every level, will survive if he's wearing a helmet.

 

The natural reaction is to get a bunch of legal consultants together and mandate some stupid rule. Let them choose to wear protective headgear but please, let's not have a mandate. What's next, masks and body armor for pitchers - who by the way, get hit by more ugly shots than coaches ever do?

 

For those interested ...

The Tulsa Drillers have established a memorial fund for Coolbaugh to benefit his family. Checks may be made to the Mike Coolbaugh Memorial Fund, c/o Spirit Bank, 1800 S. Baltimore St., Tulsa, OK 74119.

Also, Minor League Baseball is going to propose headgear for base coaches during the winter meetings as a result of this tragedy.