OUCH! DOUBLE OUCH!
 

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-d...3774-2003Apr20


For a moment, neither the game nor their excellent start mattered to the Chicago Cubs. Not when Sammy Sosa was clutching at his broken helmet, a look of fear and anger crossing his face.

Sosa got the biggest scare of his career yesterday when he was hit on the batting helmet by a Salomon Torres fastball, but apparently was not seriously hurt as the visiting Cubs lost, 8-2, to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The pitch struck Sosa with such force it left a hole in his helmet, but neurological tests were negative. Sosa did not even have a headache after the game, only a few cuts caused by his damaged helmet.

"The helmet saved me," said Sosa, who hit his 504th career homer earlier in the game. "Yeah, I've never gotten hit like that before."

Torres (2-0), who shares the same Dominican Republic home town as Sosa, also was shaken but still pitched five shutout innings in relief of injured Pittsburgh starter Josh Fogg, who lasted an inning because of a strained abdominal muscle.

Sosa tied Eddie Murray for 17th place on the career homer list with his two-run shot in the first.





that could have been his head:(

All I could think about is that some poor schmucks from quality control at the helmet manufacturer got a pink slip...
Never seen it happen before. Didn't think it could, but somone is working really hard today to figure why that helmet didn't absorb the hit better.

Damn, I cant imagine what would of happened if there was no helmet.

This is the first picture (and it's a good one) that I'm seeing of this. I didn't see the game or a replay, but it looks like the 'bill' of the helmet is what broke. A fastball hitting it at the right angle and speed could do it. When I heard about this on the radio, I imagined the helmet being cracked in half across the middle or side, which would be much, much harder to do, and anything hitting hard enough to break a helmet that way would have done worse to the batter.

Sammy will be fine.

-Mikey

Yeah, the radio made it sound much more dramatic than this picture.

It would still be scary thoguh!

wow he's lucky he's wearing a helmet

Couldn't have happen to a nicer/ FAKE MOTHER FUCKER

Actually, the helmet flying apart like that removed some of the energy that would have been directed at Sosa's head. This is similiar to race cars flying apart in crashes helping protect the driver from further injury.

I was actually at this game. The whole stadium pretty much went quite after you heard this big "CRACK!". At first I thought Sosa was fine because he got nailed in the head and then he sort of fell and then sat up and stared down Salomon Torres. I thought he was going to get up and charge the mound or something. His helmet ended up about 10 feet behind home plate, too.

The ball hit him pretty much square in the side of the head and shattered the earpiece and resultantly (is that a word?) part of the "brim" of the helmet.

OH MY GOD

That just looks bad...but I think that PorscheBunny's right. The helmet was supposed to break when it was hit like that. If it hadn't, Sammy could have really been hurt.
By breaking, it absorbed a bit more of the hit and deflected the ball...I could be wrong, though.

If it had hit him in his crotch and shattered his cup, it would have been a whole different matter.

They need to start making helmets out of Kevlar like tme military

I second that bubbaspike....when will America learn?