San Diego Padres pitcher Alex Torres became on Saturday what we believe is the first pitcher to wear one of the oversized protective hats while pitching in a Major League Baseball game.
Torres relieved Tyson Ross and allowed a run while pitching the eighth inning. The 26-year-old is in his third season in the bigs, but this is the first time he’s worn the cap.
Why might Torres want the extra protection? He was with the Tampa Bay Rays last year when Alex Cobb was hit in the head by a line drive and pitched 1.2 scoreless innings in relief to get the win. Maybe that incident has stuck out in his mind.
“It could save our lives, if someone hits a ball to your head,” Torres said after the game via MLB.com. “I get it for free, so I’m just gonna use it to see how it feels.”
As expected, Torres was ridiculed by many for the hat. It is huge, it does look silly, and he does like like a train conductor while wearing it, but at least he has it on for the right reasons — safety. So what if he looks like Super Mario with it on? At least he’ll be covered in case of a comebacker.
“The difference between how this hat and the regular hat feels isn’t much,” Torres said. “I tried it before using it in the game, playing catch. It doesn’t feel really bad. It doesn’t feel like how it looks on my head.”
Here are a few more looks at it:
Pinky and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain… pic.twitter.com/2IMfoVlkQC
— Chad Moriyama (@ChadMoriyama) June 22, 2014
Couldn't they just wear a helmet instead then? pic.twitter.com/vWETOQEHca
— Chad Moriyama (@ChadMoriyama) June 22, 2014
