MLB Umpire Injured by Foul Ball Awarded $775K in Suit Against Sporting Goods Company
A District of Columbia Superior Court jury has ordered the Wilson Sporting Goods Co. to pay $775,000 to a Major League Baseball umpire injured by a foul ball that knocked off his Wilson-made face mask.
Ed Hickox, who has since resumed his duties as an MLB umpire, suffered a concussion and several broken bones after a foul ball struck him in the jaw while he was umpiring a Washington Nationals’ game at RFK Stadium on May 14, 2005. The protective face mask Hickox was wearing at the time – manufactured by Wilson and given to Hickox for free by a Wilson representative – flipped off of his head upon impact.
Hickox sued Wilson, claiming the company was responsible not only because the mask failed to protect his face as advertised, but also because the company failed to tell Hickox that the company had not tested the mask with the same rigor they used to test hockey face masks.
“An ordinary customer would expect the umpire’s mask, built to protect the umpire’s face from stray baseballs, not to harm Plaintiff when a baseball strikes the mask,” Hickox wrote in his complaint.
Hickox was represented by Patrick Regan and Paul Cornoni of Washington’s Regan Zambri & Long. Regan, in a telephone interview today, said he was not surprised the jury ruled on Friday in Hickox’s favor, since Wilson maintained that using field testing – that is, seeing how the mask held up while it was worn by umpires and catchers – was sufficient testing.
“They were using the umpires and catchers as human guinea pigs,” Regan said.
Timothy Fizer of Krause, Fizer, Crogan & Lopez in Owings Mills, Md., represented the company. He said an appeal is likely.
The verdict was "obviously disappointing," Fizer said in a phone interview today. "Our position was that the mask was not defective."
Regan said he did not know how many of the face masks in question were given for free to MLB umpires and catchers or sold to the public. He did say that Wilson did do more testing on the mask following the 2005 incident, but did not reveal the results of the test or what, if any, changes were made to the mask’s design.
New York Yankees Face MasksShoulder's OK! Belli goes deep in Game 1
Bellinger entered the game 5-for-44 (.114) in 12 career World Series games. The blast marked his second World Series big fly and was his fourth homer of this postseason, tying him for the third-most homers by a Dodgers player in a single postseason, behind teammate and NLCS MVP Corey Seager in 2020 (six) and Davey Lopes in 1978 (five).
Including his NLCS-clinching homer in Game 7 on Sunday, the 25-year-old has gone deep in successive games. Bill Madlock is the only player in Dodgers history to homer in three straight playoff games, having done so in the 1985 NLCS.
"It was one of those where it's the first time I challenged it, and I closed to the wall, I dropped it, and then my shoulder hit the wall,” Bellinger said. “And then, I was, 'OK. I'm fine.' Mookie and [Chris Taylor] are like, 'All right, listen. Now you know. You're going to come up with a catch later in the game.’
Still not feeling good enough to take his chances with another elbow bump, though. The foot tap is funnier, anyway.
“I think I'll continue to do that,” Bellinger said. “Maybe my whole career -- who knows?”
Otis Nixon, Twins, 1998: Nixon played for 10 teams over 17 years, including a one-season stopover in Minnesota, where he wore an unusual mask that was sort of football-based, but there was more to it than that. He is, to Uni Watch's knowledge, the last MLB player to wear anything approaching a football-style mask on the field.
Oakland Athletics Face MasksMost other players who've added extra facial protection to their helmets have worn the basic (and rather boring-looking) plastic attachments we're now used to seeing. A partial list of such players includes Marlon Byrd, Mike Devereaux, Chase Headley, Jason Heyward, David Justice, Terrence Long, Kevin Seitzer and Terry Steinbach, among many others.
Minnesota Twins Face MasksMLB players are wearing these awesome MLB Gameday Collection face coverings and scarves, you can find some images below and more information about these MLB face covers and scarves here.
