Baseball and softball sliding injuries - Incidence, and the effect of technique in collegiate baseball and softball players

We prospectively observed seven softball and three baseball Division I coll egiate teams to study the incidence of sliding injuries, the types of injur ies resulting from the sliding technique, and the amount of time lost from participation. Slides were categorized as either feet- or head-first on the basis of the leading part of the body during the slide. Slides were furthe r stratified depending on whether a diveback technique was performed. We re corded 37 injuries in 3889 slides in 637 games and 7596 athlete game exposu res. The overall incidence of sliding injuries was 9.51 per 1000 slides and 4.87 per 1000 game exposures. Softball players had a significantly higher incidence of sliding injuries (12.13 per 1000 slides) than did baseball pla yers (6.01 per 1000 slides). In baseball, the injury rate was higher for fe et-first slides (7.31 per 1000 slides) than for headfirst slides (3.53 per 1000 slides) or divebacks (5.75 per 1000 divebacks). In softball, injury ra tes were higher for head-first slides (19.46 per 1000 slides) than for feet -first slides (10.04 per 1000 slides) or divebacks (7.49 per 1000 divebacks ). The majority of injuries sustained were minor, with only four (11%) inju ries causing the athlete to miss more than 7 days of participation.