On Sliding Headfirst
Sliding headfirst is bad. This is an accepted fact in baseball circles, and those who slide headfirst are demonized for "not taking care of their bodies" or just being careless, as sliding feet first is much safer in all cases. Individuals like Roberto Alomar, who swear by headfirst slides and won't let anyone tell them different, are dismissed with a wave of the hand and a "he'll never learn." There's only one problem with this view: it is flat out wrong.
Will Carroll dug up a study on baseball and softball injuries related to sliding, and it turns out that there is no statistically significant correlation between injury rate and sliding either head- or feet-first. Amazingly, the amount of time lost to injuries is actually greater for feet-first slides than headfirst slides.
April 04, 2003 - 09:56 PM