The regular season has ended and post-season baseball in under way. After our last update there was another flurry of activity regarding head injuries and concussions. One injury was actually listed as a concussion (Jason Repko) the others added to the list below – both as an “official” concussion and the “questionable” list – had some interesting stories.
Lucas Duda of the Mets hit the wall in a game and was removed due to dizziness but it was never classified as a concussion, even though as his exertion level increased his symptoms returned.
Angel Pagan also of the Mets was doing warm up swings when he hit his own head with the bat. He too had to be removed from playing due to a headache and it recurred the next day.
Justin Upton was beaned in the head and was removed from the game because of symptoms, but the very next day he was in the lineup. To his credit he has played decent, but it would have made for a better story had he just sat out the remainder of the regular season.
The total this year was 15 official concussions with five more being in question. Regardless the number this year surpasses last year benchmark of 1o. From 2001 to 2010 the average was 3.3 concussions/year, obviously this has changed with better awareness. If we consider the year of 2009 the beginning of the awareness issue the listings for concussions have been: 6, 10, 15 respectively, for an average of 10.3/year. In my opinion the number of 20 is about where one would expect this injury to be at year in and year out; a 2.7% concussion incidence rate.
- Erick Almonte
- Chris Dickerson
- Brian Roberts
- Denard Span
- Ronny Cedeno
- Craig Gentry
- Matt Treanor
- David Freese
- Al Albuquerque
- Justin Morneau
- Chase Utley
- Francisco Cervelli
- Jason Repko
- Lucas Duda (dizziness, removed from game but was not listed as concussion)
- Angel Pagan (headache after hitting himself in the head on a swing)
16-20 are; Marlon Byrd, Jose Bautistia, Orlando Hudson, Juan Niciaso and Justin Upton.
The Concussion Blog 
Dustin, one little edit for you… Justin Upton left the game that Sunday after running the bases and complaining of nausea after getting hit in the head. He underwent a CT scan (because we know the usefulness of that!) that night and re-took the ImPACT test on Monday. He sat out Monday’s game, but was in the line-up on Tuesday. In Tuesday’s game, he got hit in the head again by a fly ball and he was stunned. He held onto the fence for what looked like a long time before chasing down the ball. Then they removed him from the game again, but I believe he played the next day…