The Complete History of the Batting Helmet 🪖 

great video! who knew a topic about batting helmets could be so interesting. lol

Fantastic as usual! A slight correction from a guy who's a bit older than you. It's "Bert" Jones, not Bart. He played in the 70's, so you get a pass. You're mentioning Willie Wells of the Negro League was excellent. Wells is considered perhaps the best SS in Negro Leagues history. Others consider John Henry Lloyd the greatest. He was born 10 or 15 years before Wells. Honus Wagner said it was an honor to be mentioned with Lloyd as the greatest shortstops of their era.

The famous Tony Conigliaro picture was also in Sport magazine, which was a big sports publication back in the 50's through 70's but may not be remembered by younger viewers. I remember seeing this picture while looking through the magazine as a seven year old while waiting for a haircut in a barbershop and it made a great impression on me. I happened to be watching that Mets-Astros game when Dickie Thon got beaned and while he came back & played and had a nice career, he was never completely the same player after. Up to the beaning he was on a Hall of Fame trajectory. The pitcher was Mike Torrez who seemed to be associated with baseball disasters (think Bucky Dent). Not mentioned was the beaning of White Sox infielder Cass Michaels in the early 50's., He nearly died and never played again. That might have been the tipping point for helmets because they started to become mandatory shortly afterwards.

Very informative video. Thanks

That clip of Adam Jones is both hilarious and ultra impressive. Actually hitting the helmet while being that pissed off in the heat of the moment…legendary.

I worked with Tony Conigliaro’s nephew many years ago. He told me that when he was 18, he worked at a bar in NYC and Jack Hamilton was there bragging about hitting Tony. He told me he roughed Hamilton up and threw him out of the bar.

It was to be expected, but it was quite nice to hear Appalachia pronounced correctly.

Helmets ere mandatory for my Little League teams in Maryland, 1967-1970. I enjoyed the video. Thanks.

#FreeWoodBooger

I grew up in Cleveland and I never knew that the black arm band and rain delays originated there. Great vid as always!

Always so good!

It has nothing to do with player safety, but I'm a little surprised that you didn't mention how players use their helmets for pine tar storage.

4:59 wasn’t Gordie Howe the last grandfathered-in helmet abstainer? (A literal grandfather by that time, probably.)

I've always wondered why Brooksies helmet brim was abbreviated. Thanks for this. You know Detroit Tigers star Norm Cash never wore a helmet while batting as he was Grandfathered in and not required to wear one.

Love the videos. Thanks!

Thank you for your hard work!

Thanks Hatbilly. I superb enjoy your work. This deep dive into the history of batting helmets was a wonderfully interesting topic. The visual of Dave Parker wearing a hockey mask to the plate was horrifying and awesome. I do not know how I'd never seen that before. Keep up the great work.

Well done sir, as usual. Love the goalie masks reference. Conigliaro was before my time but the Dickie Thon incident is burned into my brain.