Thoughts from the Homer: Equipment can change the game -- for good and or bad

In my generation, it is safe to say that in just about all sports, the equipment that is used to play the games have changed – some in a subtle way and others in a game-changing way.

In 1976, at the age of 12, and fresh from a great Little League baseball season, I signed up to play tackle football for the first time. I had always been big and unlike a lot of mothers who fear for their son’s safety, my mother feared I might hurt some of those other boys.

I had been playing street football and park football and while it was technically “tag” – well, we tagged pretty hard and sometimes just went all out to tackle when we had a good patch of grass.

I remember my first football helmet. It had strands of webbing inside it and it only had two bars for a facemask. The rest of the uniform was fairly standard and really hasn’t changed. But helmets changed dramatically over the next few years. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I was wearing a new “Bike” helmet that had pads and these tubes that you could pump up. I always felt like the thing was squeezing my brains out.

The shell of the new helmets was harder because of improvements in plastic technology and I think because of that there were more injuries from impact because we were taught to plant the top of your multi-barred face mask right into the chest of the guy you were tackling. I broke the whole side of a kid’s rib cage with one of those helmets.

A few years later they came out with “newer” more safe helmets and I would guess that helmet technology is still “progressing” to this day. They also changed the rules so that you can’t tackle head-on anymore. Probably a good thing because I know I had nerve damage that ended my playing days while still in high school.

There was an incident at the Major League level that changed both catching gear and bats forever and it happened in the mid-seventies. Steve Yeager was the catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. During an at-bat while he was behind the plate, a batter broke his bat in two and sent the sharp, splintered end into his exposed throat. He survived and came up with a piece of hard plastic that he tied on the bottom of his face mask that dangled down and covered his throat. That caught on quick – as most professional equipment always does – in the younger generations coming up. I know I got one just as soon as they came out on the market – along with a catcher’s glove that had bright orange plastic sewn in around the inside edges. The pitchers were thought to be able to see the glove better to throw to it.

The incident with Yeager also ushered in the era of the aluminum bat. Those first aluminum bats were not light. They were made so thick that you could take it and swing for half an hour against a light pole – on the grip end! – and it would never break. Of course, if you just touched a baseball with it, the ball would shoot off the bat so fast that many infielders and pitchers had bones broken because the ball got there so fast.

That last reason was why, a few years ago, many states went back to wooden bats and Major League Baseball never allowed the aluminum ones. College still allows them and so do many states’ youth programs – they are just cheaper. The technology advances have made the non-wood bats (I think they have moved on to composites by now) much lighter but they have had to toy around with barrel size and the like – so have other sports.

It was also in the late 70’s and early 80’s when they came out with metal and graphite tennis rackets with oversized heads. Some of those things go very ridiculous – I’m mean – how could you miss?

My first set of golf clubs, I inherited from my dad. They were old Wilsons and they had steel shafts and the driver head and the 3-wood and 5-wood were all made from – gasp – wood!

I went out and bought one of the first steel headed drivers that had a graphite shaft. That thing could just about bend to 90 degrees when you wrapped in around your head for a full swing. Control? Not so much.

Now most “woods” are made from material that are some kind of metal – but I’m not sure what kind. In the early 2000, they started manufacturing the oversized heads for drivers and yes, I owned a 600cc driver. Again – how could you miss? Those only lasted a few years before they were deemed “illegal” to use and the driver head size was regulated to a standard size.

I’ve seen cleats in football, baseball and golf change to the point where I don’t even know what is legal and what is not anymore.

In my time, football shoes went from metal tipped, screw in blunted spikes that were at least two inches long. They gave good grip but they would also break bones. They also churned up turf like a rotor-till. A few years later the metal on the tips came off and soon the “all-in one soccer style shoe” was the only kind of footwear allowed on the field.

In baseball – metal spikes are in and then metal spikes are out. Currently they are in – at least in Texas.

In golf? Metal spikes were always the standard for the shoes. I didn’t play much for about 10 years and when I went back on the course, I nearly sent a superintendent into fits. “You can’t wear those!” he said. “They tear up the greens.” Natural aeration I say.

It’s fun to see what the latest sensation has filtered down when I’m at the games. Imagine my surprise when I saw one kid with an oven mitt. An oven mitt? Apparently, it protects your throwing hand when sliding.

An oven mitt? There’s no crying – or um kitchen wears in baseball!