Donning the tools of ignorance takes its toll

[Bench]

Mike Matheny is  forced to retire due to concussions sustained from a career as a hard nosed catcher.

 

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Matheny earned a reputation for toughness over a 13-year major-league career, playing through broken ribs, broken teeth and the daily bruises that come with his position.

But in the days leading up to May 31, Matheny took several foul tips that affected him more than normal. He recalled almost falling asleep on the bench, and in one instance, forgetting the pitch he'd called for Matt Morris.

"It was obvious something was wrong," Matheny said.

Team trainers began to log every pitch to and noted all head trauma to Giants catchers. They sent out surveys to hundreds of major- and minor-league catchers. The results showed concussions were a widespread issue among catchers.

Matheny lauded their efforts and said he hopes the sport will set baselines for head trauma similar to those in pro football and hockey.

 

It's easy to forget the brutal toll that catching inflicts. Matheny was one of the great catchers of recent years, a rival to Brad, and it's sad to see him go like this.

[Matt]

The tools of ignorance was also used in describing goaltender equipment when I first started playing ice hockey.  I'm sure it was used in baseball first though.

[Curly]

Not to mention the ability to squat down and stand back up.  My knees are shot from a standpoint of kneeling or anything requiring to bend my knees with pressure on them and then trying to standing back up.  I'm 37 and it's been that way for about 10 years now.  Not painful, they just stiffen up quick and makes it hard to stand back up.  My kid always ask me why I don't sit on the ground for very long, it's becuase ya gotta bend the knees somehow, and forget about sitting indian style (can you still say that?)  As many years as he caught, I can only imagin the hundreds of foul ball shots he took to the head.  I guess they wake you up everytime until they start putting you to sleep.

[HudsonHawk]

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Not to mention the ability to squat down and stand back up.  My knees are shot from a standpoint of kneeling or anything requiring to bend my knees with pressure on them and then trying to standing back up.  I'm 37 and it's been that way for about 10 years now.  Not painful, they just stiffen up quick and makes it hard to stand back up.  My kid always ask me why I don't sit on the ground for very long, it's becuase ya gotta bend the knees somehow, and forget about sitting indian style (can you still say that?)  As many years as he caught, I can only imagin the hundreds of foul ball shots he took to the head.  I guess they wake you up everytime until they start putting you to sleep.

I guess I'm pretty lucky.  I'm 40 and have been catching for 32 years now, and still catch 50-60 games a year.  My knees don't hurt, but they probably will in the future.  But my feet absolutely KILL me sometimes now.  And I can attest to the beating you take.  I catch two games a week and constantly have bruises and ball marks all over my arms, thighs, chest, etc.  Add that to the bruised and mangled fingers and even my boss wonders if my wife is beating me with a rolling pin in my sleep.  You can only imagine what it's like for a guy who catches 140 games a year, night in and night out.

[strosrays]

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Not to mention the ability to squat down and stand back up.  My knees are shot from a standpoint of kneeling or anything requiring to bend my knees with pressure on them and then trying to standing back up.  I'm 37 and it's been that way for about 10 years now.  Not painful, they just stiffen up quick and makes it hard to stand back up.  My kid always ask me why I don't sit on the ground for very long, it's becuase ya gotta bend the knees somehow, and forget about sitting indian style (can you still say that?)  As many years as he caught, I can only imagin the hundreds of foul ball shots he took to the head.  I guess they wake you up everytime until they start putting you to sleep.

I guess I'm pretty lucky.  I'm 40 and have been catching for 32 years now, and still catch 50-60 games a year.  My knees don't hurt, but they probably will in the future.  But my feet absolutely KILL me sometimes now.  And I can attest to the beating you take.  I catch two games a week and constantly have bruises and ball marks all over my arms, thighs, chest, etc.  Add that to the bruised and mangled fingers and even my boss wonders if my wife is beating me with a rolling pin in my sleep.  You can only imagine what it's like for a guy who catches 140 games a year, night in and night out.

The guys who really amaze me are the ones like Fisk and Boone, who did it, and at a high level of performance, for 20+ years.

And you are lucky.  I had to give up catching, which I loved, my senior year of HS, because of cartilage problems.  This was back before arthroscopic surgery was common, and my bone doctor at the time said he wasn't going to lay my leg wide open just to fix some loose cartilage, and that I should just let it "work itself out."  I let it work itself out at 3B.  And it did, too.  For awhile.  

The only drawback at the time was that I would intermittently be walking along somewhere - down my street, across campus, at the mall - and suddenkly a piece of the cartilage floating around in the joint would get in between my kneecap and the bone, and I'd fall down like I was shot.  It was pretty funny, because I'd have no inkling it was coming, and my books or drink or whatever I was carrying at the time would fly out everywhere, and boom, down I'd go.

It probably only happened 7 or 8 times that whole year, but I gained some measure of notoriety (and sympathy from girls) for it.  And it was a pretty good excuse to give mom and pop when stumbling in at 3 A.M. after some party.

After high school I was fine for about 20 years, but then I started noticing periodic swelling, and stiffness after sitting for awhile.  This was new.  Things gradually deteriorated, and then I tore a meniscus playing whiffle ball with my kids and nephews, and went under the knife or probe or whatever for the first time.  While looking around in there, the surgeon noticed frayed and decreasing cartilage around the patella, and said the first thing he thought was "Ah, an old catcher."  Since then I have had my left knee scoped two more times, and my right once.  I walk a few miles each evening, and eat handfuls of Osteo-Biflex like candy (I am probably gunning for a kidney stone by now), just to try and build up the cartilage and stave off arthritis.  

I don't know whether to atrribute it all to catching, or running 4-5 miles daily for years, on city streets. Probably some of both.

[TheWizard]

Catchers get no love, because its hard for the causual fan to appreciate the hard work that goes on back there.

Its good that Matheny walked away now, like he said.. its different when you are messing with the brain.n

[Col. Sphinx Drummond]

I always thought it was a bit bogus that Fisk is the all time leader in games caught by 1 game over Bob Boone. Boone only played 16 games not catching over a 19 year career, while Fisk was playing in 248 over about a two hundred year career. It's not a real "feel-good" thing. Sorta like Favre falling down to let the gap-toothed guy take the sack record. Or that NCAA Women's Basketball game where they let that one girl score for sentiments sake.

I remember one time being asked if I wanted to play catcher and I lied and said I had a bum knee. As it was, I didn't have the arm. Like Chris Burke, I was limited to 2nd base and the outfield. But I ain't lying, I could never hit for shit, anyhow.

[Mr. Happy]

Matheny was a gamer. He'll be missed. I wish him the best.

[JimR]

my catching career lasted 15 minutes. my dad, who pitched and caught when he played, convinced me when he was my LL coach that i should try catching. we practiced my catching at home with my brother swinging and trying to miss, and i got to where i would not blink when the hitter swung. feeling ready, i caught BP one day. i got hit by 4 foul tips in 15 minutes. when i was done that day, i said "no mas" to my dad, and from then on, it was strictly pitching and infield for me.

[strosrays]

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my catching career lasted 15 minutes. my dad, who pitched and caught when he played, convinced me when he was my LL coach that i should try catching. we practiced my catching at home with my brother swinging and trying to miss, and i got to where i would not blink when the hitter swung. feeling ready, i caught BP one day. i got hit by 4 foul tips in 15 minutes. when i was done that day, i said "no mas" to my dad, and from then on, it was strictly pitching and infield for me.

From the time I first put on the "tools" as an eight-year-old Little Leaguer, I was always told if I would catch, and well, I would never have trouble making any team.  This was basically true.  I could usually hit a little, too, which helped.

I found it interesting that one didn't often run into an indifferent catcher.  Usually it was either someone who was fairly passionate about the position, or someone forced into playing it one way or another who was only thinking about a way to do something else.

I never minded the foul tips or the squatting or the sometimes unreal feeling one got from a combination of fatigue and elevated body temperature, especially just after leaping out of a crouch to throw down to second or chase a foul pop.

I never got "racked", either.  By a baseball, anyway.  My most painful experiences that I remember from catching involved the crudely engineered, one-size-fits-all plastic cup one had to wear.  If one shifted just right, it was quite easy to pinch off one of one's nuts, just so.  People in the stands would wonder why the catcher was suddenly down on all fours, about to spew, when he hadn't even been thrown a pitch yet.

My oldest has been a middling OF for several years, and just this past season on his own decided he wanted to take up catching, for practical reasons.  He goes into HS next year, and knows the competition will be tougher; and apparently the "every decent cather finds a job" adage still holds.  To this point, he moves pretty good and is not overly afraid of being short-hopped nor noticeably flinches when the batter swings.  He hasn't mastered throwing yet, though.  His arm is plenty strong enough, but he still throws like an outfielder, in kind of a long, graceful motion.  

He hasn't got the quick, cock and throw from behind the ear move down yet.  I remember how hard it was for me to master that throw, and how cool it felt when I finally did.  One of the best memories I have from playing was when I became confident that I could not only get the ball down to second quickly, but also could almost always put it about a foot off the ground, just on the 1B side of second.  The catcher's throw to second doesn't look very pretty from the stands, I guess, but to me learning it was something like learning to dance.  Doing it right felt like I'd learned ballet.

BTW, I am glad to note some wise scientists have apparently advanced protective cup technology over the years, so my son is less likely than I was to periodically pinch off one of his jewels for no good reason.

[Taras Bulba]

The third baseman on my h.s. team had a cup made out of metal that he said was "magnesium."  Whatever it was, whenever he took a shot to the groin, a loud "PING" could be heard.  We (not him) thought it was hilarious.

[No? in Austin]

My biggest hurt was the feet.  They ached for days after catching a game.  Nothing I could do about it, it just was the way things had to be if I was going to continue to catch.  The into my early 40s, my back gave out and every time I caught, my back would ache and then lock up on me.  I would have to ice for 20 minutes/rest for 20 minutes on the back after a game for about 2 hours after the game was over.

That was so I could just get up off the floor and semi walk to the kitchen to get something to eat.  It still locks up on me to this day.  The price you pay for putting your body through some pain all those years.  And I loved every minute of it too!

[HudsonHawk]

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The third baseman on my h.s. team had a cup made out of metal that he said was "magnesium."  Whatever it was, whenever he took a shot to the groin, a loud "PING" could be heard.  We (not him) thought it was hilarious.

I've seen metal cups, but never used one.  I always had a plastic one.  Jim Bouton talked about metal cups in Ball Four, and how they used to yell "Ding Dong!" whenever someone would get hit.  

As to strosrays and the cup sliding and pinching your nuts...dude, that's what the jockstrap is for.  I can never understand how a guy could wear a cup without the strap.  How it's not sliding down to your knees every few minutes.  
Today's cups are high tech anyway.

[strosrays]

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As to strosrays and the cup sliding and pinching your nuts...dude, that's what the jockstrap is for.  I can never understand how a guy could wear a cup without the strap.  How it's not sliding down to your knees every few minutes. . .

Back in my jogging days, I used to run with this one guy every morning for awhile.  We'd meet up at 6 A.M. in a church parking lot, and run a roundabout course that took us through several neigborhoods, an apartment complex or two, and over the shell roads through a large Amoco gas field, among other places.  Roughly 4.5 miles, total.

It was always problematic where to keep one's car key and ID while out running.  Serious runners like us wore these super lightwieght shorts that didn't have any kind of pocket in them.  Usually just a plain T-shirt.  My friend's solution, and I am not making this up - he would wear one of those cup jock straps with no cup in it, and he kept his key and drivers license in the little pocket up front, where the cup would normally go.

I used to hope a cop would pull us over one morning, going through one of those neighborhoods, and ask us for our IDs.