GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (July 26, 2007)
12-year-old softball player Margaret Ruth
"Maggie" Hilbrands was knocked unconscious
when a ball hit her in the head during practice--she
died a day later.
Maggie stopped breathing but her heart was beating
after the ball hit her,
Maggie had been set to enter the seventh grade this
fall at Grand Rapids Christian Middle School. She had
been practicing with teammates on the Lowell Xtreme
traveling softball team.
July 22, 2007: Mike Coolbaugh, 35, a minor-league
baseball coach for the Double-A Tulsa Drillers, died after
being hit by a line drive as he stood in the first-base
coach's box during a game in Arkansas.
Coolbaugh died from a loss of blood to the brain after the
round missile hit him on the left side of his neck, rupturing
an artery.
Coolbaugh's wife, Amanda, 32, expecting their third child
lamented: "We were going to be done with it, but his kids
wanted to see him."
The couple has two sons, Joseph, 5, and Jacob, 3 and
Mike was already conditioning them to become lifetime
sports addicts like himself and his brother Scott.
Both Mike and Scott found they didn’t have to work as
long as they could play baseball well and decided that’s
what they would do.
Sports has become a problem by failing to establish safe alternative choices to dangerous drugs. In fact, its become dangerous and the better players are choosing to use drugs! |
| "It hit her in the wrong spot!” - mother, Jan Hilbrands, |
KILLER BASEBALL TAKES 2 MORE LIVES
| "The team is having a real hard time." -mother Jan |
| "All of baseball mourns this terrible tragedy." -commissioner Bud Selig |
| But the games will continue... |
Young and old, killed by a dangerous act, yet, no hysteria to stop the danger, no concern to spare future lives... DANGEROUS SPORTS is an ACCEPTABLE RISK! |
