Journal articles on the topic 'All American Girls Baseball League'

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) was the first, and to date, the only women’s professional baseball league in United States history. Yet many people are unaware of the league’s existence. The purposes of this paper are to (1) review the historical and research literature on the AAGPBL, (2) examine the reflections on gender issues within this literature, and (3) discuss how these issues contributed to the success and failure of the AAGPBL. The published historical documentation and archived artifacts of the AAGPBL are quite thorough; however, research on the league is limited. Gender issues, such as the female apologetic, marginalization, and feminist reconstruction of sport are evident throughout the league’s existence. These issues enhanced the league’s success, but also contributed to its demise. The pioneering efforts of the women of the AAGPBL created a new vision of opportunity for girls and women in sport that still resonates today.

The increase of women workers in industry during World War II coincided with an increase in sport participation and competition. From 1943 to 1954, the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) allowed talented women athletes a chance to play professional baseball. The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of women’s professional baseball and its connection with the social, cultural, and economic roles for women in society. An open-ended questionnaire allowed former players to respond to the social and cultural forces that impacted on women in society and sport during this era. The players of the AAGPBL were respected and admired professional women athletes in a male-dominated sport.

This article exploits heretofore unexplored data from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League that existed in the United States from 1943 to 1954 to measure and compare the economic loss to male and female professional baseball players. While female ballplayers earned a fraction of male salaries, they captured nearly twice as much of the revenues that they generated, indicating a smaller degree of exploitation. We hypothesize that in addition to the difference in structures of the two leagues, reservation wages explain the large difference in exploitation rates between the male and female players.

“How often does one baseball team play another team? What are the alternatives, and how could we figure them out?” Our local sportswriter can answer the first question–an American League team plays each team in its own division 13 times, and it plays each team in the other American League division 12 times; for a National League team, these numbers are 18 and 12, respectively. Yet if we were to ask our sportswriter about the alternatives, or how these would be determined, we would probably get a blank stare. Or the sportswriter might just say, “It's all done with computers”–the high-tech way of saying, “It's all done with mirrors.” In a sense, the sportswriter would be right–it is done with computers. Yet the challenge of it all is to understand what we do before we turn the problem over to the computer. So we shall see how to answer these questions and leave it to the Commissioner of Baseball to make any changes. The material here should be suitable for presentation at a mathematics club meeting, either by a student or by a teacher.

Abstract Major League Baseball is played from the beginning of April through the end of October each year, encompassing three of the four meteorological seasons: spring, summer, and fall. The 30 teams play in cities across the United States and Canada in many types of weather. This work studies the impact of temperature on a Major League Baseball game by examining the association between temperature and several Major League Baseball game statistics, including runs scored, batting average, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, home runs, walks, strikeouts, hit-batsmen, stolen bases, and errors. Data from 22 215 games, spanning the 2000–11 regular seasons, were studied. Temperature was categorized as “cold,” “average,” and “warm.” Analyses were performed on the following populations: all Major League Baseball games, games played in the National League, games played in the American League, and games played in 23 different stadiums that are currently being used by Major League Baseball teams. Home and away teams' performances were analyzed separately for each population of games. The results of this study show that runs scored, batting average, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, and home runs significantly increase while walks significantly decrease in warm weather compared to cold weather.

The 1980s were tumultuous years for the sport that many Americans still call the “national game” or the “national pastime.” For major league baseball, it was a decade marked by increasingly hostile relations between labor and management, resulting in three strikes, including one that interrupted the 1981 season and lasted for fifty days, causing the season to be shortened and many of the year's records to be marked with an asterisk. In 1984, Peter Ueberroth, the man who miraculously made the Los Angeles Olympics turn a profit, was hired as Commissioner of Baseball, and he soon led the owners in a conspiracy to restrict the free-agent market in order to keep players' salaries down. There were a variety of lawsuits brought against major league baseball, not only because of the owners' collusive actions but also because of ostensible racial and gender-based discrimination. And there were scandals over the drug use, sexual misadventures, and gambling habits of prominent players and managers. Nevertheless, by the end of the decade, owners' profits were up, players' salaries were up, and attendance at ball games was up. Baseball's prominence in the national imagination was further bolstered by the success of the film version of The Natural (1984), which put an end to the conventional Hollywood wisdom that baseball films are box-office poison and paved the way for a spate of baseball films toward the end of the 1980s, including Bull Durham (1988), Eight Men Out (1988), Stealing Home (1988), Major League (1989), and Field of Dreams (1989). The 1980s gave new meaning to Jacques Barzun's oft-quoted declaration that “whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game.” In his book Take Time for Paradise, A. Bartlett Giamatti, who succeeded Ueberroth as Commissioner of Baseball, rephrased Barzun's insight with double-edged puns that captured the ambivalences of the decade. “I believe that thinking about baseball will tell us a lot about ourselves as a people,” he wrote: “Baseball is part of America's plot, part of America's mysterious, underlying design — the plot in which we all conspire and collude, the plot of the story of our national life.”

Background Significant effort has been made by multiple organizations including Little League Baseball, USA Baseball, Major League Baseball, and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons to minimize the rate of shoulder and elbow injury among Little League Baseball players. Despite this effort, recent MRI studies have shown high rates of elbow pathology in this athletic population. The purpose of the current study was to track a cohort of Little League baseball players over three years with serial examinations and MRI to determine the natural history, progression, and risk factors of previously identified elbow pathology. Methods A prospective study of Little League players who were 12 to 15 years of age was performed. All players had preseason and postseason elbow MRI performed three years prior to the current study. Players underwent repeat bilateral elbow MRI, physical examination of bilateral shoulders and elbows, a detailed assessment of throwing history, and completed a questionnaire addressing playing history and current playing status, and any arm pain. The MRI scans were read by a blinded musculoskeletal radiologist and subsequently compared to players’ prior MRI to assess for progression or resolution of previously identified pathology. Identified MRI pathology was categorized as persistent/mild, progressive/severe, or improved/resolved (Figure 1). Results All 26 players who participated in the previous single season study returned for a 3-year longitudinal assessment, representing a 100% follow-up rate. Fifteen players (58%) had dominant arm MRI pathology. 80% of MRI findings (12/15 players) were determined to be new or progressive lesions. Players with post-season MRI pathology were significantly more likely to have MRI pathology at 3-years follow-up (p<0.05). Six of the 14 players (43%) with previously normal MRI had new pathology. Year-round play was a significant predictor of tenderness to elbow palpation (p=0.027) and positive MRI findings at 3-years (p=0.047). Moderate/persistent and severe/progressive MRI findings were more often seen in players who continued to play baseball, play pitcher or catcher, and play year-round baseball (Figure 2). Dominant shoulder internal rotation was significantly less than non-dominant shoulder internal rotation amongst all players (60.3° compared with 71.2°, p=0.002). Dominant shoulder external rotation was significantly increased in players who continued to play baseball when compared with those no longer playing (109.1° versus 99.3°, p=0.012), in players playing pitcher or catcher when compared with non-pitchers/catchers (111.4° versus 100.3°, p=0.005), and in players who played year-round baseball when compared to those playing < 8 months per year (109.0° versus 100.2°, p=0.026). Conclusion/Significance Dominant elbow MRI abnormalities are common in asymptomatic Little League baseball players. Three-year longitudinal evaluation suggests that these MRI findings commonly progress, especially amongst players who continue to play baseball. Year-round play appears to impart the most notable risk to young players, with results of the current study showing increased rates of physical exam abnormalities and progressive MRI pathology. Further guidelines addressing year-round play in Little League Baseball should be established.

Background: Repetitive lumbar hyperextension and rotation during athletic activity affect the structural integrity of the lumbar spine. While many sports have been associated with an increased risk of developing a pars defect, few previous studies have systematically investigated spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis in professional baseball players. Purpose: To characterize the epidemiology and treatment of symptomatic lumbar spondylolysis and isthmic spondylolisthesis in American professional baseball players. We also sought to report the return-to-play (RTP) and performance-based outcomes associated with the diagnosis of a pars defect in this elite athlete population. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted among all Major and Minor League Baseball (MLB and MiLB, respectively) players who had low back pain and underwent lumbar spine imaging between 2011 and 2016. Players with radiological evidence of a pars defect (with or without listhesis) were included. Analyses were conducted to assess the association between player-specific characteristics and RTP time. Baseball performance metrics were also compared before and after the injury episode to determine whether there was an association between the diagnosis of a pars defect and diminished player performance. Results: During the study period of 6 MLB seasons, 272 professional baseball players had low back pain and underwent lumbar spine imaging. Overall, 75 of these athletes (27.6%) received a diagnosis of pars defect. All affected athletes except one (98.7%) successfully returned to professional baseball, with a median RTP time of 51 days. Players with spondylolisthesis returned to play faster than those with spondylolysis, MLB athletes returned faster than MiLB athletes, and position players returned faster than pitchers. Athletes with a diagnosed pars defect did not show a significant decline in performance after returning to competition after their injury episode. Conclusion: Lumbar pars defects were a common cause of low back pain in American professional baseball players. The vast majority of affected athletes were able to return to competition without demonstrating a significant decline in baseball performance.

This paper examines the determinants of live game Regional Sport Network (RSN) average annual ratings in three major North American professional sport leagues: Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Hockey League (NHL). A conceptual model of the determinants of club RSN ratings is constructed based on a marketing management framework. Five categories of determinants are identified: Product-Club, Product-Player, Brand-Club, Brand-Player, and Place. Data were collected over a 12-year period (1999–2011) for a total of 46 independent variables. The list of independent variables was reduced to 16 factors and a proxy variable for each of the factors identified. Univariate and multivariate analyses were undertaken. Strong support for the each of the five categories in the conceptual model was found for the pooled sample of all three leagues. Results at the individual league level revealed league differences in the relative importance of individual variables. Implications for future research and practice are presented.

Using Forbes magazine’s estimates of the current value and revenues of professional sports teams, we derive a long-run variant of the Lerner Index. We apply the strategy to professional teams in baseball, basketball, football, and hockey over the 2006–2019 period. All teams have positive and significant price-cost margins over the entire period. Analysis of variance shows that local market factors and past team performance have less impact on a team’s market power than do common league-wide effects. The strongest market power is in leagues with more aggressive revenue sharing policies. Price-cost margins are higher for professional teams in North American than for the most valuable European soccer teams, consistent with the stronger exemption from antitrust law in the United States and the weaker revenue sharing policies in Europe. JEL Classifications: L43, L13, L83

One explanation for stacking in sports is that minorities are excluded from positions with the greatest opportunity for determining the outcome of the competition, with the place kicker in football cited as an example. This paper postulated that the short relief pitcher in baseball also has high outcome control, and it hypothesized that minorities would be underrepresented in that position as well. We classified major league pitchers from the 1992 and 1993 seasons as starters, stoppers, or others and tested whether race or ethnicity was a factor in assignment to these positions. The hypothesis was not supported for either African American or Latin American pitchers. Minority group members were equally underrepresented in all categories of the pitcher position.

Objectives: Previous studies in the evidence-based literature suggest that lumbar spine injuries can lead to a significant decrease in athletic performance. This phenomenon is particularly evident in sports that require repetitive truncal rotation, such as baseball. Although we have previously characterized the natural history of symptomatic spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis in professional baseball players, no prior study has investigated the impact of pars injuries on player performance in this patient population. The purpose of this study was to report performance-based outcomes following symptomatic pars injuries in elite-level baseball athletes. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted among all professional baseball players who presented with a symptomatic pars defect between 2011 and 2016. Both Major League and Minor League players were enrolled using a de-identified injury surveillance database maintained by the MLB. Lumbar spine imaging reports were reviewed to confirm the radiologic diagnosis of spondylolysis or spondylolisthesis. Players were stratified according to baseball position (pitcher vs. position player). Primary outcome measures for pitchers were earned run average (ERA) and walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP), while primary outcomes for position players were batting average (AVG) and on-base plus slugging (OPS). Paired t tests were used to compare pre-injury statistical performance to post-injury performance, with p < 0.05 treated as statistically significant. Results: During the defined study period, 75 players presented with low-back pain in the setting of a pars defect. 47 players were diagnosed with spondylolysis (62.7%), while 28 were diagnosed with spondylolisthesis (37.3%). Of those individuals, 19 players were excluded due to incomplete statistical data in the MLB injury surveillance system. Pre-injury vs. post-injury statistical comparisons are presented in Table 1. Pitching performance after the pars injury did not significantly differ with regard to the primary outcome measures, ERA (3.45 vs. 4.73; p = 0.25) and WHIP (1.28 vs. 1.47; p = 0.26). There was also no significant difference in any of the secondary outcomes - runs per 9 innings (R/9), hits per 9 innings (H/9), walks per 9 innings (BB/9), strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9), home runs per 9 innings (HR/9), and strikeout-to-walk ratio (K/BB). Similarly, batting performance among position players did not significantly differ from pre-injury to post-injury with regard to the primary outcomes, AVG (.261 vs. .256; p = 0.59) and OPS (.672 vs. .667; p = 0.87), or any of the secondary outcomes - on-base percentage (OBP), slugging percentage (SLG), runs per plate appearance (R/PA), hits per plate appearance (H/PA), runs batted in per plate appearance (RBI/PA), extra-base hits per plate appearance (XBH/PA), home runs per plate appearance (HR/PA), and walk-to-strikeout ratio (BB/K). Conclusion: This study represents the most comprehensive analysis of the impact of symptomatic pars injuries on MLB player performance. While previous studies suggest that lumbar injuries lead to shorter careers in both pitchers and position players, our current data demonstrate that pars defects do not cause a significant decrease in performance when MLB athletes return to play following these injury episodes. Given the limitations of our study design, larger prospective investigations are needed to validate these conclusions. [Table: see text]

Background: Numerous reports have described players in professional American sports leagues who have been sidelined with a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or a pulmonary embolism (PE), but little is known about the clinical implications of these events in professional athletes. Purpose: To conduct a retrospective review of injury reports from the National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Football League (NFL) to take a closer look at the incidence of DVT/PE, current treatment approaches, and estimated time to return to play in professional athletes. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods: An online search of all team injury and media reports of DVT/PE in NHL, MLB, NBA, and NFL players available for public record was conducted by use of Google, PubMed, and SPORTDiscus. Searches were conducted using the professional team name combined with blood clot, pulmonary embolism, and deep vein thrombosis. Results: A total of 55 venous thromboembolism (VTE) events were identified from 1999 through 2016 (NHL, n = 22; MLB, n = 16; NFL, n = 12; NBA, n = 5). Nineteen athletes were reported to have an upper extremity DVT, 15 had a lower extremity DVT, 15 had a PE, and 6 had DVT with PE. Six athletes sustained more than 1 VTE. The mean age at time of VTE was 29.3 years (range, 19-42 years). Mean (±SD) time lost from play was 6.7 ± 4.9 months (range, 3 days to career end). Seven athletes did not return to play. Players with upper extremity DVT had a faster return to play (mean ± SD, 4.3 ± 2.7 months) than those with lower extremity DVT (5.9 ± 3.8 months), PE (10.8 ± 6.8 months), or DVT with PE (8.2 ± 2.6 months) ( F = 5.69, P = .002). No significant difference was found regarding time of return to play between sports. Conclusion: VTE in professional athletes led to an average of 6.7 months lost from play. The majority of athletes were able to return to play after a period of anticoagulation or surgery. Those with an upper extremity DVT returned to play faster than those with other types of VTE. Further study is needed to look into modifiable risk factors for these events and to establish treatment and return-to-play guidelines to ensure the safety of these athletes.

Background: The effect of hip arthroscopy on athletic performance compared with preinjury levels for professional athletes in different sports remains unknown. In addition, while return rates have been reported for professional baseball, football, and hockey players, return rates have not been reported for professional basketball players. Hypothesis: Professional athletes in 4 major North American sports would be able to return to their sport and preoperative level of performance at a high rate after arthroscopic hip surgery. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods: Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), and National Hockey League (NHL) athletes who underwent hip arthroscopy were identified through a previously reported protocol based on public sources. Successful return to play (RTP) was defined as returning for at least 1 professional regular season game after surgery. Performance scores were calculated by use of previously established scoring systems. Each player served as his own control, with the season prior to surgery defined as baseline. To make comparisons across sports, the authors adjusted for expected season and career length differences between sports and calculated percentage changes in performance. Results: The authors identified 227 procedures performed on 180 professional athletes between 1999 and 2016. Successful RTP was achieved in 84.6% (192/227) of the procedures. Compared with all other athletes, NBA athletes returned at a similar rate (85.7%, P ≥ .999). NFL offensive linemen returned at a significantly lower rate than all other athletes (61.1%, P = .010). NHL athletes returned at a significantly higher rate than all other athletes (91.8%, P = .048) and demonstrated significantly decreased performance during postoperative season 1 compared with baseline (–35.1%, P = .002). Lead leg surgery for MLB athletes (batting stance for hitters, pitching stance for pitchers) resulted in a 12.7% reduction in hitter performance score ( P = .041), a 1.3% reduction in pitcher fastball velocity ( P = .004), and a 60.7% reduction in pitch count ( P = .007) one season after surgery compared with baseline. Players in nearly every sport demonstrated significant reductions in game participation after surgery. Conclusion: This study supports the hypothesis that hip arthroscopy in professional athletes is associated with excellent rates of return at the professional level. However, postoperative performance outcomes varied based on sport and position.

Objectives: Ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction (UCLR) is a common procedure among professional baseball pitchers. Currently, 25% of starting Major league baseball (MLB) pitchers have undergone UCLR. Fracture of the medial epicondyle at the level of the humeral tunnel requiring open reduction internal fixation (ORIF) is an uncommon complication following UCLR. The purpose of this study was to determine the rate of return to sport (RTS) and performance upon RTS in professional baseball pitchers following ORIF of the medial epicondyle, and see if there is a difference in RTS rate and performance between players who underwent ORIF and matched controls. The authors hypothesized that there is a high rate of RTS in professional baseball pitchers following medial epicondyle ORIF with no significant difference in rate of RTS or performance, specifically related to the primary outcome performance variables of win-loss percentage (W-L%), WHIP ((walks +hits)/innings pitched), fielding independent pitching (FIP), and wins above replacement (WAR)) between cases and controls. Methods: All professional baseball pitchers who underwent medial epicondyle ORIF between 2010-2016 were included. Demographic and performance data (pre and post surgery) for each player was recorded. Performance metrics were then compared between cases and matched controls (no history of UCLR or ORIF). Results: Overall, 15 pitchers (80% starters, 73.3% right-handed) underwent ORIF of a medial epicondyle fracture. All underwent a prior UCLR using either the American Sports Medicine Institute (n=9, 60%) or docking (n=6, 40%) technique. ORIF techniques included fixation with one screw (n=13, 86.7%) and fixation with suture anchors (n=2, 13.3%). Eleven (73.3%) pitchers were able to RTS (which did not differ from controls p=0.537). No significant differences existed in the primary performance outcome variables when comparing pre-operative to post-operative performance. No significant differences in the primary performance outcome measures were seen between cases and controls following surgery although cases pitched fewer innings than controls following surgery (p=0.003) Conclusion: Following medial epicondyle ORIF of professional pitchers with a history of UCLR, 73.3% were able to RTS without a significant decline in most performance variables when compared to their pre-operative performance levels, or when compared to matched controls. Number of innings pitched declined following surgery.

Purpose Sponsorship sales in professional sport is an area of increasing attention and growing investment, but the sport management literature offers only limited research about sales strategies and tactics. As a result, practitioners and academics alike have called for investigation in the area. In response to this need, the purpose of this paper is to empirically explore sponsorship sales in professional sport. Design/methodology/approach Sponsorship sales professionals working for sport properties in the four major North American sport leagues were surveyed on a variety of sponsorship sales-related variables and factors. Findings A total of 92 sponsorship sales professionals responded to the study, for an estimated 15.3 percent response rate. At the time of the data collection, the 92 respondents worked in the National Football League (NFL) (37), Major League Baseball (MLB) (16), National Basketball Association (NBA) (18), and National Hockey League (NHL) (21). A series of practical, conceptual, and comparative results are presented, highlighted by turnover as a problem, the importance of activation/servicing in sponsorship sales, and the high level of investment clubs are making in sponsorship sales. Research limitations/implications First, on “coverage,” the authors acknowledge that variations in the data can be linked, to a large extent, to reporting issues due to the nature of the study, the data, and the sample. Variations in sponsor number or training, for example, are not necessarily indicative of weaknesses in the industry, but occur because of strategic differences among properties. Second, it is important to note that not all properties had personnel respond to the study. Consequently, the figures presented in this study might be a function of the individual personnel who responded rather than a true average figure for a particular league. Third, in terms of the sample, this study deals with a very specific context in the four North American major sport leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL). Thus, one should be careful in generalizing to minor professional, collegiate, Olympic, or other sport contexts. Practical implications The finding of this paper states that the turnover of sponsors may be a structural issue and is certainly related to the demand for the particular property (Seaver Marketing Group, 2010). Driven by a number of factors, including technology shifts to digital channels and increased sophistication by the sponsorship sales departments of professional sport properties, a shift in the activation and service paradigm is reported and extended to the specific context of sponsorship sales. Social implications Results show that sport properties in the North American major sport leagues have a strong commitment to sponsorship sales by the organization (commitment of resources), by sport personnel (who support the business side), and by their sponsorship sales professionals who report satisfaction, motivation, and support from their property. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical research study specific on sponsorship sales in professional sport, thus providing direction for practice and future research on an issue of high importance to the sport industry.

Women’s sports is at an all-time high, as evidenced by the emergence of a number of professional women’s sport leagues (such as basketball, baseball, and fast-pitch softball). Notwithstanding the growth and popularity of women’s sports, these leagues will have to compete with other forms of leisure for consumers’ discretionary time and resources. Since financial stability is vital to the longevity of the developing women’s leagues, the competition for consumers will require a greater need for the marketers of women’s professional sport organizations to understand the variety of factors that influence sport consumers’ behavior and shape the composition of their respective markets. Presented in this article are the results of a study in which the consumers of one of the professional women’s basketball teams that competed in the American Basketball League (ABL)were investigated. The teams’ spectators are profiled as sport consumers, factors that influenced their attendance, are identified and implications for effective marketing strategies are noted.

P Diddy’s Bad Boy for Life video provides a strategic point of departure in the quest for values and community, sui generis, in SportsWorld. This study poses an interruption to the “ideological” articulations of discourse on the relationship between hip-hop music and sports by providing an examination of empirical and scientific data inside of SportsWorld. There is a carefully crafted narrative about the coexistence among Black American athletes, SportsWorld, and hip-hop music. From the beginning of Black athletes’ entry into the White spaces of the so-called level playing field of sports—from National Association of Stock Car Racing to the National Hockey Association to Major League Baseball to National Basketball Association—this integration upsets the norms of both civility and history; because for many in White America, the belief persists that these same athletes were not then and should not be today in those sacred spaces. From Jackie Robinson to the Williams Sisters to Jack Johnson to Tiger Woods to Althea Gibson to Fritz Pollard and, of course, Muhammad Ali—all of these pioneers suffered the indignities of racial discrimination. As Smith argues in his 2014 book Race, Sport and the American Dream, fast forward, deep inside the second aught of the 21st century, it is often assumed that the addition of hip-hop music to the pregame and half-time entertainment at ballparks, basketball arenas, stadiums, and ice hockey arenas signals a welcoming to the Black Athlete and their fans. Using a Marxian lens, this study argues that both these assumptions are no more than the ideology of beliefs that Marx describes as “fantasies and illusions” or more straightforward a “phantasmagoria.” These fantasies and illusions show up as a laterna magica projecting images on society and in SportsWorld, where these can be described as commodity fetishism. Through the authors' empirical analysis of data on segregation and integration in SportsWorld, they demonstrate that things are not always as they seem.

AbstractSports-related injuries increase healthcare cost burden, and in some instances have harmful long term physical and psychological implications. There is currently a lack of comprehensive data on temporal injury trends across professional North American sports. The purpose of this study was to compare temporal trends, according to incidence and time-loss injuries, by body part in professional baseball, basketball, football, and ice hockey. Public injury data from Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Football League, and National Hockey League from 2007 to December 2019 were extracted and used. A mean of 62.49 injuries per 100 players per season was recorded for all professional sports. The groin/hip/thigh reported the greatest season proportional injury incidence for baseball, football, and ice hockey, with the groin/hip/thigh as the third highest injury incidence in basketball. When stratifying by more specific body part groupings, the knee demonstrated the greatest injury proportional incidence for basketball, football, and ice hockey, with the knee as the third highest proportional injury incidence for baseball. There was an increased in basketball ankle injuries following 2011–2012 season. Football and ice hockey reported the greatest concussion proportion incidence, with football demonstrating an increase in concussions over time, and a substantial increase in concussions from the 2014 to 2015 season. These publicly extracted data and findings can be used as a shared resource for professional baseball, basketball, football, and ice hockey for future individual and across sport collaborations concerning resource allocation and decision making in order to improve player health.

This essay investigates the early stages of the Major League Baseball (MLB) pipeline by focusing on the Dominican academy system. Once an international player is signed to a professional contract, they report to the team’s academy in the Dominican Republic. All 30 teams have an academy located on the island, where they house, feed, train, and educate players on American culture. I argue that MLB maintains a neocolonial system by having a system of insufficient education, discrimination, and surveillance based on Haitian nationality, and by communicating the American dream to its prospects. MLB controls its prospects economically and culturally in these instances, which is strictly neocolonial. I analyze, with attention to internal discourse and reference to neocolonial literature, how MLB justifies and maintains this system, rhetorically.

The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) Family Network show Switched at Birth tells two stories—one which follows the unique plot of the show, and one about the new openness of television executives toward integrating more people with a variety of visible and invisible physical embodiments, such as hearing loss, into television content. It first aired in 2011 and in 2017 aired its fifth and final season.The show focuses on two teen girls in Kansas City who find out they were switched due to a hospital error on the day of their birth and who grew up with parents who were not biologically related to them. One, Bay Kennish (Vanessa Marano), lives with her wealthy parents—a stay-at-home mom Kathryn (Lea Thompson) and a former professional baseball player, now businessman, father John (D.W. Moffett). She has an older brother Toby (Lucas Grabeel) who is into music. In her high school science class, Bay learns about blood types and discovers her parents’ blood types could not have produced her. The family has professional genetic tests done and discovers the switch (ABC Family, “This Is Not a Pipe”).In the pilot episode, Bay’s parents find out that deaf teen, Daphne Vasquez (Katie Leclerc), is actually their daughter. She lives in a working class Hispanic neighbourhood with her hairdresser single mother Regina (Constance Marie) and grandmother Adrianna (Ivonne Coll), both of whom are of Puerto Rican ancestry. Daphne is deaf due to a case of meningitis when she was three, which the rich Kennishes feel happened because of inadequate healthcare provided by working class Regina. Daphne attends an all-deaf school, Carlton.The man who was thought to be her biological father, Angelo Sorrento (Gilles Marini), doesn’t appear in the show until episode 10 but becomes a series regular in season 2. It becomes apparent that Daphne believes her father left because of her deafness; however, as the first season progresses, the real reasons begin to emerge. From the pilot onwards, the show dives into clashes of language, culture, ethnicity, class, and even physical appearance—in one scene in the pilot, the waspy Kennishes ask Regina if she is “Mexican.” As later episodes reveal, many of these physical appearance issues are revealed to have fractured the Vasquez family early on—Daphne is a freckled, strawberry blonde, and her father (who is French and Italian) suspected infidelity.The two families merge when the Kennishes ask Daphne and her mother to move into their guest house in order get to know their daughter better. That forces the Kennishes into the world of deafness, and throughout the show this hearing family therefore becomes a surrogate for a hearing audience’s immersion into Deaf culture.Cultural Inclusivity: The Way ForwardShow creator Lizzy Weiss explained that it was actually the ABC Family network that “suggested making one of the kids disabled” (Academy of Television Arts & Sciences). Weiss was familiar with American Sign Language (ASL) because she had a “classical theatre of the Deaf” course in college. She said, “I had in the back of my head a little bit of background at least about how beautiful the language was. So I said, ‘What if one of the girls is deaf?’” The network thought it was wonderful idea, so she began researching the Deaf community, including spending time at a deaf high school in Los Angeles called Marlton, on which she modelled the Switched at Birth school, Carlton. Weiss (Academy of Television Arts & Sciences) says of the school visit experience:I learned so much that day and spoke to dozens of deaf teenagers about their lives and their experiences. And so, this is, of course, in the middle of writing the pilot, and I said to the network, you know, deaf kids wouldn’t voice orally. We would have to have those scenes only in ASL, and no sound and they said, ‘Great. Let’s do it.’ And frankly, we just kind of grew and grew from there.To accommodate the narrative structure of a television drama, Weiss said it became clear from the beginning that the show would need to use SimCom (simultaneous communication or sign supported speech) for the hearing or deaf characters who were signing so they could speak and sign at the same time. She knew this wasn’t the norm for two actual people communicating in ASL, but the production team worried about having a show that was heavily captioned as this might distance its key—overwhelmingly hearing—teen audience who would have to pay attention to the screen during captioned scenes. However, this did not appear to be the case—instead, viewers were drawn to the show because of its unique sign language-influenced television narrative structure. The show became popular very quickly and, with 3.3 million viewers, became the highest-rated premiere ever on the ABC Family network (Barney).Switched at Birth also received much praise from the media for allowing its deaf actors to communicate using sign language. The Huffington Post television critic Maureen Ryan said, “Allowing deaf characters to talk to each other directly—without a hearing person or a translator present—is a savvy strategy that allows the show to dig deeper into deaf culture and also to treat deaf characters as it would anyone else”. Importantly, it allowed the show to be unique in a way that was found nowhere else on television. “It’s practically avant-garde for television, despite the conventional teen-soap look of the show,” said Ryan.Usually a show’s success is garnered by audience numbers and media critique—by this measure Switched at Birth was a hit. However, programs that portray a disability—in any form—are often the target of criticism, particularly from the communities they attempting to represent. It should be noted that, while actress Katie Leclerc, who plays Daphne, has a condition, Meniere’s disease, which causes hearing loss and vertigo on an intermittent basis, she does not identify as a deaf actress and must use a deaf accent to portray Daphne. However, she is ASL fluent, learning it in high school (Orangejack). This meant her qualifications met the original casting call which said “actress must be deaf or hard of hearing and must speak English well, American Sign Language preferred” (Paz, 2010) Leclerc likens her role to that of any actor to who has to affect body and vocal changes for a role—she gives the example of Hugh Laurie in House, who is British with no limp, but was an American who uses a cane in that show (Bibel).As such, initially, some in the Deaf community complained about her casting though an online petition with 140 signatures (Nielson). Yet many in the Deaf community softened any criticism of the show when they saw the production’s ongoing attention to Deaf cultural details (Grushkin). Finally, any lingering criticisms from the Deaf community were quieted by the many deaf actors hired for the show who perform using ASL. This includes Sean Berdy, who plays Daphne’s best friend Emmett, his onscreen mother, played by actress Marlee Matlin, and Anthony Natale who plays his father; their characters both sign and vocalize in the show. The Emmett character only communicates in ASL and does not vocalise until he falls in love with the hearing character Bay—even then he rarely uses his voice.This seemingly all-round “acceptance” of the show gave the production team more freedom to be innovative—by season 3 the audience was deemed to be so comfortable with captions that the shows began to feature less SimCom and more all-captioned scenes. This lead to the full episode in ASL, a first on American mainstream television.For an Hour, Welcome to Our WorldSwitched at Birth writer Chad Fiveash explained that when the production team came up with the idea for a captioned all-ASL episode, they “didn’t want to do the ASL episode as a gimmick. It needed to be thematically resonant”. As a result, they decided to link the episode to the most significant event in American Deaf history, an event that solidified its status as a cultural community—the 1988 Deaf President Now (DPN) protest at Gallaudet University in Washington. This protest inspired the March 2013 episode for Switched at Birth and aired 25 years to the week that the actual DPN protest happened. This episode makes it clear the show is trying to completely embrace Deaf culture and wants its audience to better understand Deaf identity.DPN was a pivotal moment for Deaf people—it truly solidified members of a global Deaf community who felt more empowered to fight for their rights. Students demanded that Gallaudet—as the premier university for deaf and hard-of-hearing students—no longer have a hearing person as its president. The Gallaudet board of trustees, the majority of whom were hearing, tried to force students and faculty to accept a hearing president; their attitude was that they knew what was best for the deaf persons there. For eight days, deaf people across America and the world rallied around the student protestors, refusing to give in until a deaf president was appointed. Their success came in the form of I. King Jordan, a deaf man who had served as dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the time of the protest.The event was covered by media around the world, giving the American Deaf community international attention. Indeed, Gallaudet University says the DPN protest symbolized more than just the hiring of a Deaf president; it brought Deaf issues before the public and “raised the nation’s consciousness of the rights and abilities of deaf and hard of hearing people” (Gallaudet University).The activities of the students and their supporters showed dramatically that in the 1980s deaf people could be galvanized to unite around a common issue, particularly one of great symbolic meaning, such as the Gallaudet presidency. Gallaudet University represents the pinnacle of education for deaf people, not only in the United States but throughout the world. The assumption of its presidency by a person himself deaf announced to the world that deaf Americans were now a mature minority (Van Cleve and Crouch, 172).Deaf people were throwing off the oppression of the hearing world by demanding that their university have someone from their community at its helm. Jankowski (Deaf Empowerment; A Metaphorical Analysis of Conflict) studied the Gallaudet protest within the framework of a metaphor. She found a recurring theme during the DPN protest to be Gallaudet as “plantation”—which metaphorically refers to deaf persons as slaves trying to break free from the grip of the dominant mastery of the hearing world—and she parallels the civil rights movement of African Americans in the 1960s. As an example, Gallaudet was referred to as the “Selma of the Deaf” during the protest, and protest signs used the language of Martin Luther King such as “we still have a dream.” For deaf Americans, the presidency of Gallaudet became a symbol of hope for the future. As Jankowski attests:deaf people perceived themselves as possessing the ability to manage their own kind, pointing to black-managed organization, women-managed organizations, etc., struggling for that same right. They argued that it was a fight for their basic human rights, a struggle to free themselves, to release the hold their ‘masters’ held on them. (“A Metaphorical Analysis”)The creators of the Switched at Birth episode wanted to ensure of these emotions, as well as historical and cultural references, were prevalent in the modern-day, all-ASL episode, titled Uprising. That show therefore wanted to represent both the 1988 DPN protest as well as a current issue in the US—the closing of deaf schools (Anderson). The storyline focuses on the deaf students at the fictitious Carlton School for the Deaf seizing one of the school buildings to stage a protest because the school board has decided to shut down the school and mainstream the deaf students into hearing schools. When the deaf students try to come up with a list of demands, conflicts arise about what the demands should be and whether a pilot program—allowing hearing kids who sign to attend the deaf school—should remain.This show accomplished multiple things with its reach into Deaf history and identity, but it also did something technologically unique for the modern world—it made people pay attention. Because captioning translated the sign language for viewers, Lizzy Weiss, the creator of the series, said, “Every single viewer—deaf or hearing—was forced to put away their phones and iPads and anything else distracting … and focus … you had to read … you couldn’t do anything else. And that made you get into it more. It drew you in” (Stelter). The point, Weiss said, “was about revealing something new to the viewer—what does it feel like to be an outsider? What does it feel like to have to read and focus for an entire episode, like deaf viewers do all the time?” (Stelter). As one deaf reviewer of the Uprising episode said, “For an hour, welcome to our world! A world that’s inconvenient, but one most of us wouldn’t leave if offered a magic pill” (DR_Staff).This episode, more than any other, afforded hearing television viewers an experience perhaps similar to deaf viewers. The New York Times reported that “Deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers commented by the thousands after the show, with many saying in effect, “Yes! That’s what it feels like” (Stelter).Continued ResonancesWhat is also unique about the episode is that in teaching the hearing viewers more about the Deaf community, it also reinforced Deaf community pride and even taught young deaf people a bit of their own history. The Deaf community and Gallaudet were very pleased with their history showing up on a television show—the university produced a 30-second commercial which aired within the episode, and held viewing parties. Gallaudet also forwarded the 35 pages of Facebook comments they’d received about the episode to ABC Family and Gallaudet President T. Alan Hurwitz said of the episode (Yahr), “Over the past 25 years, [DPN] has symbolised self-determination and empowerment for deaf and hard of hearing people around the world”. The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) also lauded the episode, describing it as “phenomenal and groundbreaking, saying the situation is very real to us” (Stelter)—NAD had been vocally against budget cuts and closings of US deaf schools.Deaf individuals all over the Internet and social media also spoke out about the episode, with overwhelmingly favourable opinions. Deaf blogger Amy Cohen Efron, who participated in 1988′s DPN movement, said that DPN was “a turning point of my life, forcing me to re-examine my own personal identity, and develop self-determinism as a Deaf person” and led to her becoming an activist.When she watched the Uprising episode, she said the symbolic and historical representations in the show resonated with her. In the episode, a huge sign is unfurled on the side of the Carlton School for the Deaf with a girl with a fist in the air under the slogan “Take Back Carlton.” During the DPN protest, the deaf student protesters unfurled a sign that said “Deaf President Now” with the US Capitol in the background; this image has become an iconic symbol of modern Deaf culture. Efron says the image in the television episode was much more militant than the actual DPN sign. However, it could be argued that society now sees the Deaf community as much more militant because of the DPN protest, and that the imagery in the Uprising episode played into that connection. Efron also acknowledged the episode’s strong nod to the Gallaudet student protestors who defied the hearing community’s expectations by practising civil disobedience. As Efron explained, “Society expected that the Deaf people are submissive and accept to whatever decision done by the majority without any of our input and/or participation in the process.”She also argues that the episode educated more than just the hearing community. In addition to DPN, Uprising was filled with other references to Deaf history. For example a glass door to the room at Carlton was covered with posters about people like Helen Keller and Jean-Ferdinand Berthier, a deaf educator in 19th century France who promoted the concept of deaf identity and culture—Efron says most people in the Deaf community have never heard of him. She also claims that the younger Deaf community may also not be aware of the 1988 DPN protest—“It was not in high school textbooks available for students. Many deaf and hard of hearing students are mainstreamed and they have not the slightest idea about the DPN movement, even about the Deaf Community’s ongoing fight against discrimination, prejudice and oppression, along with our victories”.Long before the Uprising episode aired, the Deaf community had been watching Switched at Birth carefully to make sure Deaf culture was accurately represented. Throughout season 3 David Martin created weekly videos in sign language that were an ASL/Deaf cultural analysis of Switched at Birth. He highlighted content he liked and signs that were incorrect, a kind of a Deaf culture/ASL fact checker. From the Uprising episode, he said he thought this quote from Marlee Matlin’s character said it all, “Until hearing people walk a day in our shoes they will never understand” (Martin). That succinctly states what the all-ASL episode was trying to capture—creating an awareness of Deaf people’s cultural experience and their oppression in hearing society.Even a deaf person who was an early critic of Switched at Birth because of the hiring of Katie Leclerc and the use of SimCom admitted he was impressed with the all-ASL episode (Grushkin):all too often, we see media accounts of Deaf people which play into our society’s perceptions of Deaf people: as helpless, handicapped individuals who are in need of fixes such as cochlear implants in order to “restore” us to society. Almost never do we see accounts of Deaf people as healthy, capable individuals who live ordinary, successful lives without necessarily conforming to the Hearing ‘script’ for how we should be. And important issues such as language rights or school closings are too often virtually ignored by the general media.In addition to the episode being widely discussed within the Deaf community, the mainstream news media also covered Uprising intensely, seeing it as a meaningful cultural moment, not just for the Deaf community but for popular culture in general. Lacob wrote that he realises that hearing viewers probably won’t understand what it means to be a deaf person in modern America, but he believes that the episodeposits that there are moments of understanding, commonalities, and potential bridge-building between these two communities. And the desire for understanding is the first step toward a more inclusive and broad-minded future.He continues:the significance of this moment can’t be undervalued, nor can the show’s rich embrace of deaf history, manifested here in the form of Gallaudet and the historical figures whose photographs and stories are papered on the windows of Carlton during the student protest. What we’re seeing on screen—within the confines of a teen drama, no less—is an engaged exploration of a culture and a civil rights movement brought to life with all of the color and passion it deserves. It may be 25 years since Gallaudet, but the dreams of those protesters haven’t faded. And they—and the ideals of identity and equality that they express—are most definitely being heard.Lacob’s analysis was praised by several Deaf people—by a Deaf graduate student who teaches a Disability in Popular Culture course and by a Gallaudet student who said, “From someone who is deaf, and not ashamed of it either, let me say right here and now: that was the most eloquent piece of writing by someone hearing I have ever seen” (Emma72). The power of the Uprising episode illustrated a political space where “groups actively fuse and blend their culture with the mainstream culture” (Foley 119, as cited in Chang 3). Switched at Birth—specifically the Uprising episode—has indeed fused Deaf culture and ASL into a place in mainstream television culture.ReferencesABC Family. “Switched at Birth Deaf Actor Search.” Facebook (2010). <https://www.facebook.com/SwitchedSearch>.———. “This Is Not a Pipe.” Switched at Birth. Pilot episode. 6 June 2011. <http://freeform.go.com/shows/switched-at-birth>.———. “Not Hearing Loss, Deaf Gain.” Switched at Birth. YouTube video, 11 Feb. 2013. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5W604uSkrk>.Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. “Talking Diversity: ABC Family’s Switched at Birth.” Emmys.com (Feb. 2012). <http://www.emmys.com/content/webcast-talking-diversity-abc-familys-switched-birth>.Anderson, G. “‘Switched at Birth’ Celebrates 25th Anniversary of ‘Deaf President Now’.” Pop-topia (5 Mar. 2013). <http://www.pop-topia.com/switched-at-birth-celebrates-25th-anniversary-of-deaf-president-now/>.Barney, C. “’Switched at Birth’ Another Winner for ABC Family.” Contra Costa News (29 June 2011). <http://www.mercurynews.com/tv/ci_18369762>.Bibel, S. “‘Switched at Birth’s Katie LeClerc Is Proud to Represent the Deaf Community.” Xfinity TV blog (20 June 2011). <http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/tv/2011/06/20/switched-at-births-katie-leclerc-is-proud-to-represent-the-deaf-community/>.Chang, H. “Re-Examining the Rhetoric of the ‘Cultural Border’.” Essay presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, Dec. 1988.DR_Staff. “Switched at Birth: How #TakeBackCarlton Made History.” deafReview (6 Mar. 2013). <http://deafreview.com/deafreview-news/switched-at-birth-how-takebackcarlton-made-history/>.Efron, Amy Cohen. “Switched At Birth: Uprising – Deaf Adult’s Commentary.” Deaf World as I See It (Mar. 2013). <http://www.deafeyeseeit.com/2013/03/05/sabcommentary/>.Emma72. “ABC Family’s ‘Switched at Birth’ ASL Episode Recalls Gallaudet Protest.” Comment. The Daily Beast (28 Feb. 2013). <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/28/abc-family-s-switched-at-birth-asl-episode-recalls-gallaudet-protest.html>.Fiveash, Chad. Personal interview. 17 Jan. 2014.Gallaudet University. “The Issues.” Deaf President Now (2013). <http://www.gallaudet.edu/dpn_home/issues.html>.Grushkin, D. “A Cultural Review. ASL Challenged.” Switched at Birth Facebook page. Facebook (2013). <https://www.facebook.com/SwitchedatBirth/posts/508748905835658>.Jankowski, K.A. Deaf Empowerment: Emergence, Struggle, and Rhetoric. Washington: Gallaudet UP, 1997.———. “A Metaphorical Analysis of Conflict at the Gallaudet Protest.” Unpublished seminar paper presented at the University of Maryland, 1990.Lacob, J. “ABC Family’s ‘Switched at Birth’ ASL Episode Recalls Gallaudet Protest.” The Daily Beast 28 Feb. 2013. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/28/abc-family-s-switched-at-birth-asl-episode-recalls-gallaudet-protest.html>.Martin, D. “Switched at Birth Season 2 Episode 9 ‘Uprising’ ASL/Deaf Cultural Analysis.” David Martin YouTube channel (6 Mar. 2013). <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA0vqCysoVU>.Nielson, R. “Petitioned ABC Family and the ‘Switched at Birth’ Series, Create Responsible, Accurate, and Family-Oriented TV Programming.” Change.org (2011). <http://www.change.org/p/abc-family-and-the-switched-at-birth-series-create-responsible-accurate-and-family-oriented-tv-programming>.Orangejack. “Details about Katie Leclerc’s Hearing Loss.” My ASL Journey Blog (29 June 2011). <http://asl.orangejack.com/details-about-katie-leclercs-hearing-loss>.Paz, G. “Casting Call: Open Auditions for Switched at Birth by ABC Family.” Series & TV (3 Oct. 2010). <http://seriesandtv.com/casting-call-open-auditions-for-switched-at-birth-by-abc-family/4034>.Ryan, Maureen. “‘Switched at Birth’ Season 1.5 Has More Drama and Subversive Soapiness.” The Huffington Post (31 Aug. 2012). <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maureen-ryan/switched-at-birth-season-1_b_1844957.html>.Stelter, B. “Teaching Viewers to Hear with Their Eyes Only.” The New York Times 8 Mar. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/arts/television/teaching-viewers-to-hear-the-tv-with-eyes-only.html>.Van Cleve, J.V., and B.A. Crouch. A Place of Their Own: Creating the Deaf Community in America. DC: Gallaudet University Press, 1989.Yahr, E. “Gallaudet University Uses All-Sign Language Episode of ‘Switched at Birth’ to Air New Commercial.” The Washington Post 3 Mar. 2013 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/gallaudet-university-uses-all-sign-language-episode-of-switched-at-birth-to-air-new-commercial/2013/03/04/0017a45a-8508-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394_blog.html>.