Jared Hughes of Pittsburgh Pirates will test out new protective headgear

One of the primary concerns of sports in this day in age is making the games that athletes play safer, and one of the chief concerns in baseball is making sure that pitchers are safe when it comes to the dreaded scenario of a line drive hitting a pitcher in the head.

We’ve seen a few ideas for protective headgear for pitchers pop up in the past, and this Spring we will see yet another idea be put into testing. Today, Jared Hughes of the Pittsburgh Pirates is going to test out the latest idea in protective headgear for pitchers.

Now, judging this from a purely aesthetic standpoint, I’d say that this looks far better than what we saw former Mets pitcher Carlos Torres test out during the past couple of seasons.

With that being said, I’m sure that aesthetics are just about one of the least important factors when it comes to this type of thing. As long as the headgear does its job of preventing major injury from a line drive to the head and it’s reasonably comfortable for the player to wear, then that’s really what the main concern should be.

If all goes well and more pitchers give this new headgear the thumbs up, who knows? This may end up being the new normal for pitchers in Major League Baseball, and it may be a look that we’ll all have to get used to seeing on the mound.