The Muse

A man named Charlie Muse died earlier this month. When I first saw the obituary headline, I have to confess I didn’t recognize the name. Then I read a little further and discovered that Muse had created the modern-day batting helmet. And in a sport where 90-mile-per hour fastballs have become more and more the norm, that's a pretty vital contribution to the safety of the game.

During the 1953 season, the Pirates became the first major league team to permanently adopt batting helmets, taking the field wearing rather primitive fiberglass “miner’s caps” at the mandate of general manager Branch Rickey, who also owned stock in the company producing the helmets. Rickey gave Muse, a Pirates executive at the time, instructions to create and design a helmet that would provide players with protection above the ears. As the appointed president of Rickey’s American Cap Company, Muse helped designed a helmet that was light enough for a player to wear on his head, but strong enough to cushion the blow of an errant pitch.

Pirate players had to wear Muse’s helmets both at bat and in the field, which explains all of those old black-and-white photographs of 1950s Pirates like Toby Atwell, Bob Friend, and Nellie King wearing helmets in every pose and posture. Even manager Fred Haney joined the helmet-wearing brigade, apparently to protect himself from banging his head against the top of the dugout when making visits to the mound. The helmets became a permanent feature for Pirate hitters, but within a few weeks players began disavowing their use in the field, partly because of their awkward feel and partly because of the possibility of a batted or thrown ball striking a fielder in the head seemed so remote. Still, the players didn’t dare remove the helmets when they took their turns at bat. Shortly thereafter, players on other teams followed suit, and by the 1960s, the helmet became the preferred choice of most major league hitters. Although his death has received little attention, Muse deserves more than footnote recognition in baseball history. Given the importance of the batting helmet to safety in the modern game—both at the professional and amateur levels—one can argue that Muse merits a more lasting memorial. After all, how many players might have died from the early fifties to the present day if Muse had not satisfied Rickey’s wishes and come up with a suitable prototype? Given the increase of the average fastball’s velocity in recent years and the seemingly more tightened covers on today’s baseballs, it’s not unreasonable to think that there would have been at least one or two deaths in the major leagues, and maybe more.

Thankfully, today's improved helmets make the game even safer. And anyone who steps into a batter’s box today wearing one of those helmets should take a moment to remember the contribution of Charlie Muse.