Tyler Colvin Impaled By Baseball Bat -- Is Barry Bonds to Blame?

By Joe Eskenazi Mon., Sep. 20 2010 at 11:35 AM

Categories: Sports

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With the mind-boggling success of Twilight and True Blood you could argue that America now has two national pastimes: baseball and vampires. In their resemblance, the twain do not often meet. And yet, this weekend, the Chicago Cubs' Tyler Colvin was impaled by a wooden stake, and gravely injured.

Colvin is going to make it -- doctors staved off the possibility of a collapsed lung -- but his season is over. Once again, the hue and cry has been raised to ban maple bats, which have a tendency to fragment. And who, according to a hefty lawsuit against Major League Baseball, is to blame for the popularity of these evil bats? That'd be Barry Lamar Bonds.

In other news, no one but no one is showing up to watch the Marlins these days.

In a lawsuit filed last month against the league, the "New York Metroploitan Baseball Club, Inc." (sic) and two Met players, fan James Falzon says others are to blame for his horrific injury when a fragment of a maple bat clocked him in the stands.

Bonds isn't named in the suit, but his indirect responsibility for Falzon's wrecked visage is alleged early on: "Traditionally, Major League Baseball players used bats made of ash. However, in 2001, Major League Baseball player Barry Bonds used bats made of maple. That year Bonds hit 73 home runs" ... "Following Bonds' record breaking 73 home run season, the use of maple bats began a steady rise among Major League Baseball players."

A suit by a fan regarding an object projected into the stands is one thing -- especially when the complainant claims his "infant" son suffered "shock, fright, mental suffering, and emotional distress." But when a Major League player his hit by a dagger-like projectile during a routine play and receives season-ending injuries, that may change things.

This might soon be one sort of bat both vampire stories and baseball games no longer feature.

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