Little League baseball is a big deal in Ohio, as it is throughout the rest of the country, with an estimated several million youngsters playing organized ball each summer. With that number of children, injuries are bound to occur, some of them quite serious.

Traumatic brain injury is certainly at the top of the list, with its potential for shattering life-long impacts on young people hit by balls and bats and suffering collisions.

Little League Baseball is paying acute attention to that, with Stephen Keener, its president, saying that changes are on the imminent horizon that could appreciably lower the instances of head and brain injuries.

One of them is a prototype pitchers' helmet currently under development. The helmet, manufactured by the Easton-Bell sporting goods company, is specifically designed to protect pitchers from balls that are hit sharply back at them, often at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour.

That is precisely what happened last year to a California player, Gunnar Sandberg, who spent a month in a coma and had several surgeries to relieve swelling on his brain. Easton-Bell says it took notice of Sandberg, who is now testing the prototype, which is a padded band that fits easily over a baseball cap.

Sandberg likes it, and says that it is comfortable enough to sleep in. Easton-Bell engineers say that its manufacture resulted from film study of more than 5,000 pitchers, with close scrutiny of where they are most vulnerable when throwing off the mound.

Keener says that, following further testing, Little League could make the helmet mandatory for its pitchers.

Related Resource: Daily Mail "Prototype baseball helmet designed to save lives and prevent head trauma is unveiled" March 8, 2011