Pay attention!

1.

Apparently Ricardo Lockette of the Seattle Seahawks came awfully close to becoming the first on-field casualty of the NFL in, well, ever.

Back in November Lockette's head was nearly removed on a hit by Jeff Heath of the Dallas Cowboys. That phrase is normally used as hyperbole, but it is apparently uncomfortably close to truthful in this case.

Scary moment, maybe more so than anyone realized at the time.

Lockette discussed this injury on a visit to the paramedics who responded to his injury, properly handling him so that his neck didn't fail completely.

This blog mostly concerns itself with the issue of brain trauma in football, though we're on a slight break at the moment. It's worth the occasional reminder that one doesn't have to suffer concussions or end up with a CTE-riddled brain for football to mess you up whether you hit each other in practice or not.

And on that subject, one has to wonder if the same kind of care always comes into play when head injuries and potential concussions are involved. Those usually don't draw paramedics onto the field.

2.

So a kid attending a spring training game at Disney World wasn't far from having his head removed either.

As the Pittsburgh Pirates were playing against the Atlanta Braves (who for now still have spring training at Disney's Wide World of Sports complex), Pirates batter Danny Ortiz lost his grip on his bat after a swing, with the bat spinning crazily towards the stands. In the stands, Shawn Cunningham barely had time to stick out his arm to deflect the bat away from the head of his eight-year-old son Landon.

Frighteningly close.

The money quote is at the bottom of the article, by a representative of a company that supplies netting to MLB teams to keep this kind of stuff from happening. 

Huff added that it is important for fans to be aware of what's happening on the field and avoid distractions such as cellphones. 

“Fans have to actively watch the game,” Huff said. “It is just like crossing the street — you need to look up from your phone to do so safely.”

Man, oh man, is that a great quote. "Fans have to actively watch the game." I may just make it the motto of this blog.

3.

Of course, what you see when you do so is sometimes downright ugly. At least the team being threatened won, to the degree that counts for anything.

That guy does have a history in sports, for what it's worth. He actually managed to destroy a league (almost) all by himself.

Now he seems set on destroying other things.

Sports fans are capable of enough ugliness, without intentionally divisive and race-baiting politics being thrown in. 

I'm trying to think of a time when the mixture of sports and politics has ever been good for sports.

Can't think of one. 

But pulling this crap on high school kids? Evil. Pure evil.

4. 

Wrapping back to a previous blog entry, and to bullet point #1, Calvin Johnson, a.k.a. Megatron, has confirmed he will retire from the NFL.

The rumors had been pretty well-established out there since the end of the regular season, and now it's done. Johnson retires after nine seasons. 

As noted in the earlier blog post, that used to seem like a short career. Not any more, perhaps.

Football doesn't have to screw up your brain to mess you up real good. 

You have to actively watch the game, even when you're not actually at the game. It is showing us ourselves, good and bad. Ignoring the bad is self-destructive. 

Pay attention! This stuff matters more than it should.