P Alesse wrote:
Holy Cow, I remember that. I was right next to Joe. It was a non TV game and the camera wasn't there. Joe got nailed. You mean to tell me that we were sitting next to each other in that dugout and never knew it?
It was back when I was working for the paper ... so I don't have access to the images ... but I had some great shots of the medical staff treating Joe ... Damn work for hire ... I won't do that again ...
I spent most of that day standing behind Putsee and Russ chatting between pitches ... part of the game, I was on the third base side chatting with Rusty Kennedy ... first I had seen him in a while ....
I was on games operations back then. Before I even picked up a camera. Russ, due to ailing health hasn't been back in a few years. What a great guy though.
If someone made a batting helmet-like hat that you could shoot with (no brim but had temple protection) I'd be all over it.
Personally, when I shoot baseball I try to limit my exposure ... find corners of the wells where most of my body is protected and I can make a quick ducking movement behind some protection.
But sometimes being alert isn't enough. I'm sure Mr. Iacono was as alert as anyone can be ...
P Alesse wrote:
I was on games operations back then. Before I even picked up a camera. Russ, due to ailing health hasn't been back in a few years. What a great guy though.
Russ is one of the friendliest and funniest guys I have ever been around shooting sports ... he could even get Vathis to laugh once in a while ...
cm0rris0n wrote:
But sometimes being alert isn't enough. I'm sure Mr. Iacono was as alert as anyone can be ...
When I shoot NCAA, I just remember things from my days of playing college ball.....if the pitcher is throwing especially hard, a lot of the hitters may be behind the ball (but only for a couple of innings at best) so be aware of left/right handed batters in the lineup. Also, watch overthrows from the guys in the field. Last, have fun...its baseball
I remember getting hit in the gut once -- tried to back up but I backed into a fence. The thing is, most of us who played baseball in the past have to re-learn how to be afraid of the ball (something coaches teach kids to overcome). When you're not wearing a glove, and when both of your hands are full of Japanese metal, glass and electronics, it's a lot harder to protect yourself.
I have shot a few years for the Saint Paul Saints and have taken a few strays when I was NOT paying attention and walked away with a few bruises. Thankfully they were foul grounders.
My suggestion is of course know the game. If you are down right field and have a righty in the box, make sure you know where yuo and the ball are in relation to one another the whole time.
Helmets... I would suggest looking into rock climbing helmets. Take your camera with you so you can get an idea how it will feel when shooting portrait with the camera.
One big thing to remember is not just the batter hitting the ball, but also watch for flyingbats as well as overthrows to first or second.
I have not taken one to the head, but I have many to the shins and one to the thigh. Just be mindful.
Human behavior and thought are soooo interesting. It's no wonder I've devoted my life to studying them.....
Riddle me this: Is the likelihood of your needing the $1,000,000 or more in liability insurance you are covered by greater or less than the likelihood of your being seriously injured while shooting baseball? Tough to say, in my opinion. Yet I'll bet that most every one of us who would not be out shooting without the liability coverage has justified shooting baseball without analogous protection. Why? Why aren't we willing to apply the STAY ALERT rule to avoiding the need for liability coverage? Why are we more willing to agree that that would be stupid? Is it that we worry more about money than our personal well-being? Is it the fact the insurance protection is invisible? Why is the logic behind one form of protection so much more compelling than the logic behind the other? Is it a macho thing? Who can make sense of this?
Russ...speaking from my own experience, I always knew there were risks associated with shooting sports. I took what I thought were measures that, although weren't failsafe, were measures that reduced some of the risks. I admit I never even considered looking into some type of "physical" protection or to even question if such items were even available...I guess because I have never seen it used by any photographer I came in contact with other than knee pads. So I guess the bottom line for me was the fact there really wasn't much focus put on this and I bet on the odds. Something like I've been driving my entire adult life and haven't worn seat belts....until the accident occurs and I get banged up pretty good. This is the best analogy I can put on it for myself.
Thanks, Frank. I think you're right about much of this being a matter of our following the lead of other shooters, who are not wearing any kind of protection. And I want to be clear about this: I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. The times I've shot baseball, I've not worn any kind of protection. But the experience scared the hell out of me, so this is a relevant topic. Also, I probably will be shooting it again, soon, so I've got to figure something out.
Russ Isabella wrote:
Thanks, Frank. I think you're right about much of this being a matter of our following the lead of other shooters, who are not wearing any kind of protection. And I want to be clear about this: I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. The times I've shot baseball, I've not worn any kind of protection. But the experience scared the hell out of me, so this is a relevant topic. Also, I probably will be shooting it again, soon, so I've got to figure something out.
For me, it's not about not seeing other photographers do it. I could care less about that.
It's that I haven't yet found anything that would work. Sure I suppose I could wear the helmet I use when I go sking, but given that I shoot baseball in the hot desert of Arizona I'd be trading the remote possibility of injury from a ball to the near certain possibility of heat stroke. Batting helmets don't work because of the bill. I suppose I could take the facemask off a football helmet - but again there's the heat. Cycling helmets are cool but don't really offer enough protection ... sigh.
There's probably a clinical name for it but I call it the "It won't happen to me" syndrome where we get the misguided notion that things like that only happen to other people.
It was much stronger in me when I was younger but having seen friends and family members suffer injury and disease it is becoming increasingly clear that none of us live charmed lives where we are somehow protected from the same calamities that befall others.
We all have to go sometime. I just don't want to be taken out by something I could have avoided Which brings us back to.........how do we avoid it?
Chris: I was referring more to the phenomenon of learning from what we see than suggesting a concern about looking different. We need a head gear company like Think Tank that would cater to photographers .
Marty: It's called the invincibility fable and it kicks in during adolescence. When it kicks out is another question altogether!
I didn't see it listed, but are we talking about T-ball here or 19U?
I've been shooting several World Series tournaments in Southaven for the past 4-5 years: 6-7 games a day, 20 days during the month of July, ages 6-19.
I've been hit twice (that I can remember):
- once while shooting 16U, sitting in the sunken 3rd base dugout so that my angle was just inches above the ground level - and I get hit by an overthrown ball to third base: it bounces off the dugout wall and hits me in ... the temple.
I thought I would have been safe in there, but apparently not - at least the speed was diminished by the distance and wall before I put the ball to rest.
- the other time was while shooting a night game with a 200/1.8, but I wanted to get close enough to fill the frame with the batter's upper torso. So I'm between the dugout and the umpire - along the wall (maybe 15ft from the batter?), shooting with my right eye, watching with my left. These were 11/12 year olds I believe, but I heard the crack of the ball off the bat, and I can't say that I thought about it, but my hand came off the lens into a blocking position and the ball hit me squarely in the hand. There was a big hush from the parents in the fence behind me wondering what happened also, but what I saw after that was the umpire looking at me... just shaking his head - in disbelief that I was still sitting there for the rest of the game.
But that is not to say other hits don't come. One of my shooters came in with a black eye - who now firmly believes that gloves are the prefered stopping apparatus. Otherwise, legs are the most common magnet - unless you can hide behind a monopod like me But most hits are just dings and out of all the games we've covered, I'd say getting hit is less than once a season (which for us is that one month, but like I said, we cover 100+ games in that month.)
The best defense: one eye on the ball (before the black eye) and/or a long enough lens to let you re-act to it getting larger and larger in the viewfinder or other open eye.
I've never handled one in person or really seen one up close, but what about hockey helmets?
The key to any protection is the ability for the helmet to absorb and soften the energy from a ball. I assume a hard rubber hockey puck travels at speeds similar to a baseball.
