The Broken-Bat Menace

This is brutal. Chicago Cubs rookie Tyler Colvin's season ended Sunday when he got impaled in the chest by a shattered baseball bat.

Colvin was charging home from third on a double by teammate Wellington Castillo when the barrel of the broken bat pierced him just below the clavicle. Colvin managed to score but was immediately taken to a hospital where a tube was inserted into his chest to prevent a collapsed lung.

The video above is a compilation of shattered-bat incidents from the last few seasons. "Advancements" in technology have produced bats with ever-thinner handles. Some manufacturers blame others for using inferior wood, while others say maple wood causes the problem and that Major League Baseball should require that bats be made from the traditional ash. The debate has been going on for years but Commissioner Bud Selig doesn't seem particularly motivated to address the problem yet.

Colvin says he's doing okay, but the problem of an indifferent bureaucracy slow to respond to dangerously flawed equipment in the field is something that should sound familiar to many of our brothers and sisters recently home from Iraq. (via Deadspin)