Amateur baseball rates are low
All sports entail some element of risk of catastrophic injury. However, the frequency of such catastrophic injuries is surprisingly low in amateur baseball. To summarize, the overall rate of catastrophic injuries such as deaths and disabilities is only one per one million participants.
Our insurance clients, Dixie Youth Baseball and Dixie Boys/Majors Baseball, participated in a study by completing a survey form on an annual basis that requires the reporting of any catastrophic injury. Other participating organizations include American Legion, Little League, Babe Ruth, PONY, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, NCAA, the National Baseball Congress, the National Federation Of State High School Associations, National Junior College Athletic Association, the National Association of Police Athletic Leagues, the American Amateur Ba
seball Congress, Cape Cod Baseball, and the National Amateur Baseball Federation.
“The final report includes eighteen years of data collection from 1989 through 2006. Participation numbers for that period of time included 82,687,876 amateur baseball players in 13 organizations. Catastrophic injuries for that same period of time included 39 fatalities, 26 disability injuries, and 30 injuries with complete recovery. The catastrophic injury rate for the eighteen years is 0.11 injuries per 100,000 participants or approximately one injury per 1,000,000 participants. This figure is very low. The eighteen year injury rate for fatalities was 0.05 per 100,000 participants, 0.03 for disability injuries, and 0.04 for serious or recovery injuries.”
See the report by USA Baseball Medical and Safety Committee and National Center on Catastrophic Sports Injury Research.
