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Stop Mocking David Wright

Ha-ha, we get it. David Wright looks like Rick Moranis in Spaceballs or Marvin the Martian of Looney Tunes fame when he wears that giant new batting helmet. He looks dopey. If you're a Phillies fan, you're going to mock anything a Mets player does, and boy, David Wright looks like he's wearing a giant bowl on his head so his mama can cut his hair.

But seriously, stop mocking now. The biggest reason pro athletes shun the latest and greatest safety equipment is out of fear they'll look foolish or at least like less of a tough guy. On the baseball diamond, hitter wear a version of the equipment that appears to be significantly less safe than what Wright is now wearing, making them more susceptible to injuries, including serious concussions.

Even worse, the guy at bat is the only person wearing a helmet at any given time in a major league game, for the same reasons of misguided machismo. So you get incidents like this and this and this.

Or better yet, ask Mike Coolbaugh, the minor league first-base coach who got hit in the head by a line drive, then died. I'm sure his wife, two sons, and the baby-to-be his family was expecting when he died felt much better knowing daddy looked cool right before he left them forever.

As someone who wore a seat belt right before getting into a terrifying car accident, I can tell you that I've never been so happy to look dorky in the driver's seat.

David Wright doesn't have a wife and kids to think about when he steps into the batter's box. But he does have the good sense to know that concussions (or worse) are all too common in baseball, and by all too common I mean they can be prevented and should never, or almost never, happen.

So instead of mocking the guy, let's applaud him for having the guts to ignore the taunters and say, 'I don't care how I look, I want just want to be safe.'