How is a baseball helmet supposed to fit
Getting the right fit for your baseball helmet
Timecodes:
spring has sprung in ball players are
heading back to the field the Cardinals
opened earlier this week while the Cubs
held their season opener just last night
local teams are also taking to the field
and KHQ as Melissa Shriver is at River
City Sports Academy talking about how to
get the best fit for your baseball
equipment this year now each year US
emergency departments treat nearly
175,000 sports and recreation related
traumatic brain injuries including
concussions among children and
adolescents from birth to 19 years but
during the last decade emergency room
visits and sports recreation related
traumatic injuries happen to children's
and not adolescents are increasing so
what's going on Melissa well as you said
60% increase in the last decade that
should be a red light warning sign for
any parent who has a child in any
sporting activity especially basketball
baseball football those are very
important things to know about and
really one thing that really hinges on
your child safety in the field is their
helmet I'm joined here with Mike Giles
he is a coach at RIT for the River City
dirtbags and one of the founders you
tell me a little bit about why a helmet
is so important to your child safety one
of the reasons helmets are so important
is your child is going to be batting and
while they're betting they get hit in
the head they needed that protection
also you need that the proper fit helmet
if they're running the bases in the
helmet falls off then there the helmet
can't do its protection so you need a
helmet that fits correctly and it
doesn't move when the coach I'll is
running so he can stay protected him or
her it's just scary to think about a
traumatic brain injury and a child like
Gavin's age he's eight years old but
there's a lot of children that are
actually having traumatic brain injuries
like concussions at this age when we
pick out a helmet we have some helmets
here what should we be looking for for a
player like Gavin anytime you look at a
helmet you want to look at a couple
different things one you want to make
sure the size is correct one so it
doesn't fall off - you want a lot of
padding in here when we all play we had
maybe a quarter inch of padding you know
never skimp on money when it comes to a
helmet get a good helmet make sure it
has good padding one of the things you
want to look for inside is it needs to
say Pro dry or bio dry which both these
helmets do and that just means when
player
you know sweat in it it doesn't stay in
there and break down the material it'll
dry out real quick so this stays nice
and has all the cushion you need for it
so on feeding of it with this helmet
will be just a little bit too big for
Gavin take half head off and put this on
big guy now hold your head up high for
me now as you can look he has a lot of
room here and when players start to run
what will happen this helmet see how it
just moves so freely it's not a problem
and it will pop off and what we don't
want to happen that happened then
someone throw a baseball and hit them in
the head so this is a little bit too big
even though it had a lot of padding it's
not going to do its job because it's
probably gonna fall off at some point
now this helmet has been fitted for him
this is what he'll wear during games
once you put that one on it's such a big
difference to oh it's huge and as you
look up Gavin you can see it's snug
around his ears you know there's hardly
any movement it's going to stay on his
head and it's going through the
protection you know if it hits how you
feel you good so you know and one of the
main things if you do have a helmet and
I know they do cost a lot of money if
you get hit in the head with a baseball
you need to replace the helmet they call
just gonna break down you want to make
sure you protect your child's head so
make sure that you always protect to
make sure it's not dry rot on the inside
of it and that there you have no cracks
and if you have a crack get rid of it so
you heard it here important not to skip
obviously on your child's head or his
brain one thing that we wanted to talk
about too is you know we always cdb
around town or River City dirtbags tell
me the story about the River City
dirtbags it's relatively new only six
years old but it's gotten very big yes
the the dirt bags actually started as a
YMCA baseball team and we started
playing t-ball and coach pitch we
started doing a couple tournaments then
we got a bunch of parents together and
we expanded started traveling playing
baseball around the area as we started
playing baseball there were several
other teams in the area that started
forming which is great for this area so
we went from one team to two teams last
year then we had a third at the end of
last year to now we have ten baseball
teams multiple ones at each age group
that parents will travel as far as
Kansas City up to
Chicago down in st. Louis and it's just
not Quincy and that's one of the reasons
we don't call it the Quincy dirtbags
anymore because we were called the
Quincy dirtbags but now we have several
players from Hannibal Fairfield Iowa
several different places in Missouri
that's about our way that come into this
community to get the training and you
get the coaching they need and then this
past year and a half we opened up River
City Sports Academy so they have a place
to practice not only the players for the
play for the dirt bags but other members
in the community you also said we wanted
to add this as well if you have any
questions about how to get your helmet
fitted for your child and they said that
they have some experts here that are
willing to help you and show you what
you're doing wrong or perhaps suggest
another helmet back to you Hannah
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