There's No Concussions in Baseball!

Although Jason Bay, Justin Morneau and Ryan Church would disagree, we can all agree it's not quite the problem that it is in the NFL.  Take a look at this Tweet by CJ Wilson @str8edgeracer:

Listening to mark schlereth break down helmetgate and NFL's shadyness on espn makes me happy I play #mlb and have the mlbpa

This is on the heels of NFL instituting fines and inevitably suspensions for unnecessarily hard hits.  While the NFL has a built in advantage for parody, the MLB maybe has an advantage in dealing with concussions as there is talk now of instituting a 7-day disabled list for concussions.  Jason Bay and Justin Morneau missed a good portion of this season due to concussions.  In the NFL, players continue to play with concussions, just listen to what Channing Crowder had to say:

If I'm knocked out, I don't know where I'm at, I can't say my name, now I can't play football.  If I get hit in the head and black out for a second and now I get back up dizzy, OK, I'm ready to go

There seems to be some sort of sick sense of pride in the NFL about playing hurt or with a concussion, and its kind of disturbing. This is the league that has had players die during practice and get paralyzed on the field during games.  It took Dale Earnhardt's death for NASCAR to make necessary safety changes.  It seems like the NFL is tip-toeing a very dangerous line here, they shouldn't be waiting for their version of Dale Earnhardt.  Their solution (thus far) has been to penalize players for rough hits, and in reaction to that players have been outraged calling it "Flag Football" and even considering retirement like James Harrison apparently did before returning to practice.

It should be repeated, players have already died and been paralyzed on things unrelated to concussions and now with more concussions than ever and more medical studies revealing the effect of them and the NFL doesn't really know what to do.  This is a tough call-- the NFL has to keep the safety of its players first but it also doesn't want to change the game.   If they don't solve this issue fast it will likely get worse before it gets better.  The NFL is the most popular sport in America, and will  remain that way for a long time, but at what point will kids stop playing football and in turn stop watching it (as much)?

It should be no surprise then why CJ Wilson is thankful he plays in the MLB.