SC Supreme Court Rules Softball Contact Sport

In March 2004, Jeff Wagner left work and joined a father-son pickup softball game during a Boy Scout camping trip.  During the game Wagner and another father, David Cole collided which left Wagner with a broken rib.  Cole suffered a head wound, went into convulsions, then spent a couple of days in intensive care.  Personal distress and injury led Cole and his son to sue the church, the Boy Scouts and Wagner. 

“While Cole was playing a casual game in which the teams did not even keep score, he was still playing softball, which is a contact sport,” the SC Supreme Court wrote in Monday’s opinion. “Where a person chooses to participate in a contact sport, whatever the level of play, he assumes the risks inherent in that sport.”

Source: Insurance Journal 2011

ASA Softball Takes Steps To Protect Players Against Hot Bats

Check out the link below for an interesting Q & A from ASA Softball on how they are addressing the issue of hot bats with their bat testing protocol. The article discusses compression testing performed in the field by ASA personnel, lab testing, non approved bat lists, and Track Man Doppler radar to test batted ball speeds under actual field conditions. 

Bat Testing ASA

Source: SODA special report on ASA Press Release, April 2011

Eight Year Old Sues for Hard Softball

The eight-year-old claimant had joined a softball team for girls of her age group. While playing the infield, she was struck in the face by a ball thrown by a teammate, resulting in a fractured nose. The claimant’s parents filed suit against the softball league, the coach and the child who threw the ball. The main allegation in the suit was that the plaintiff and her parents were deceived by the defendants because the softball wasn’t soft and actually was quite hard.

Source: Liable to Laugh Copyright 2004 American Specialty Companies, Inc.