* Personally, I think it’s great that the National Hockey League has an award for something other than the usual jock quantifiables: most points, goals, assists, punches landed, teeth lost, etc.
In effect, they have one for best overall class act: specifically “…sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.” This year the NHL’s Lady Byng Award went to the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Marty St. Louis, who also led the league in points. He previously won the Lady Byng in 2009-10 and 2010-11. The first Lightning player to win it was Brad Richards in 2003-04, the Stanley Cup season.
Only one downside: the “Lady Byng” Award? It’s named for the wife of a Canadian viscount who was Governor General of Canada in the 1920s. Doesn’t exactly resonate in the 21st century. “Lady Byng”? This is hockey–not dressage.
* That was one frightening moment last Saturday when Tampa Bay Rays’ pitcher Alex Cobb was hit on the side of the head by a batted ball. He would leave the field on a stretcher. Fortunately, he was diagnosed with a “mild concussion” and only spent the night at Bayfront Medical Center. But what’s also scary is that Cobb wasn’t even the first pitcher this year to get hit in the head by a line drive at the Trop. It happened last month to Toronto’s J.A. Happ, who is still recovering.
It certainly begs the question of what to do to mitigate serious head injuries. Historically, it’s been nothing. It rarely happened; it was part of the game; and pitchers didn’t care for the idea of needing extra protection on the mound. But it’s no longer rare; traditionally unprotected pitchers 60 1/2 feet away from a batter now seems negligent; and pitchers appear increasingly uncomfortable with the status quo. No one wants to look at mandated measures after a death on the mound.
Maybe protecting pitchers should be looked at in a larger context. There was a time when batters, just 60 1/2 feet away from pitchers, didn’t wear batting helmets. And football players blocked and tackled without face masks. And hockey goalies–goalies!–went helmet- and -maskless.
But that was then–and this is not. Some day society will also look back and shake its collective head as to how unprotected pitchers left vulnerable to lethal line drives were considered just part of the game.