Kyle Farmer, a Dodger rookie catcher in the Advanced A Pioneer League in 2013, has already experienced some of the major challenges of baseball beyond the biggest challenge of all – trying to hit a round ball less than three inches in diameter traveling upwards on 90 MPH with a round bat. Add to that the fact that he played his entire college career as a shortstop but was drafted by the Dodgers and spent his first season in professional baseball at an entirely different position – as a catcher.

In 2010, as a hard hitting and strong defensive shortstop with the University of Georgia Bulldogs, Farmer had another experience – one identical to that of Evan Longoria, Nick Markakis, Dustin Pedroia, Mike Zunino, Troy Tulowitzki, Pablo Sandoval, Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Thome, Gordon Beckham, Tony Gwynn Jr. and a number of other major league players – Farmer broke the hamate bone in his left hand. And as it often seems to happen, he broke the bone on a simple swing and miss.

Farmer missed fifteen games in his freshman year as a result of the injury but was able to return to action more quickly than usual. The hamate bone injury usually sidelines players from four to six weeks but Farmer was able to returned to action after being out only three weeks.

The hamate bone injury is relatively common but somewhat overlooked. It does not garner the publicity of hamstring and groin injuries that are so prevalent among the ranks of major league baseball players. Perhaps the reason is that the hamate bone injury is more easily correctable and although the effects can linger for some time they aren’t chronic in nature.

The injury is most prevalent with athletes that participate in sports that involve the swinging of a bat, a racket or a club such as baseball, softball, tennis and golf. The hamate bone is part of the wrist structure and sits at the base of the palm below the little finger. The bone has a small hook that projects toward the palm that adds leverage to the grip. The bone is small and apparently susceptible to stress, and because of its location, an injury to it may be difficult to detect. However, the excruciating pain associated with the injury is more than enough to diagnose the nature of the injury.

The positioning of the hand on the bat, club or racket means they rest against the hook of the hamate. In the case of the baseball bat, Farmer’s left hand is against the knob of the bat. On a powerful swing, hit or miss, the hook takes the full force of his swing. How great is that force? Here’s what I found from hypertextbook.com:

The batter exerts some 6,000-8,000 pounds of force on the ball. This force is required to change a 5 1/8th-ounce ball from a speed of 90 mph to a speed of 110 mph, this distorts the baseball to half its original diameter and the bat is compressed one fiftieth of it’s size. At the same time, the knob of the bat is compressing the part of the batter’s hand that rests against it, including the somewhat fragile hamate bone.

Farmer returned to play more quickly than most major league players do after suffering a hamate injury. The usual treatment for the injury means removing the bone, the option chosen by Farmer. Orthopedic surgeon John Seiler at the Atlanta Hand, Shoulder & Elbow Medical Center performed the surgery. However, it was not the excellence of his work that allowed Farmer to return to active duty so quickly, it was the ingenuity of Bulldogs trainer Mike Dillon, who looked for ways to reduce the stress on the wrist while swinging the bat and catching a hard hit ball. With gratitude, Farmer explained the modifications developed by his trainer.

“I’ve got to thank Mike for all that,” Farmer said. “He came up and just put it all together. He just kind of figured it out. If I didn’t have those pads, it would be different story. The wrist guard helped me not over-torque my wrist. The bat guard helped keep the knob from grinding into my wound. The glove protected me from getting hit in the field.”

Dillon made some simple pieces of equipment to help protect Farmer’s hand as he recovered from surgery following his hamate bone injury to his left hand. At the MLB level hamate bone injuries ordinarily cost players and consequently their teams four to six weeks of playing time, often at crucial times during the season. Players wear batting helmets, shin guards to protect against foul balls, arm guards to protect against pitched balls, yet there have been no innovations to help protect against hamate bone injuries – or so I thought.

Grady Phelan, a graphic designer, has been developing a bat design that he feels will help protect players from hamate bone injuries. He came up with the idea after a near accident in his back yard.

“My youngest son Brian and I have a summer ritual of fungoing hickory nuts out of our backyard,” said Phelan. “It’s great practice and makes for a fun afternoon. While we were hitting these green nuts into the woods, the bat I was swinging slipped from my hands nearly hitting Brian. The knob had been digging into the palm of my hand (and) had left a nice bruise in my hand (similar to what you get from your first time in the cages every spring). That’s when I realized that the knob probably caused my grip to fail. I started to do research on thrown bats, hand injuries, anatomy and even started to experiment with bat designs to eliminate the problem.”

Phelan, in fact, has developed his bat over the past ten years at his own expense. His bat, the ProXR, has his patented tilted knob at 23 degrees. The 23-degree tilt is the exact range of motion of the human wrist and he calculates it will mitigate the impact to the hamate by 25%, thus preventing much stress on the bone and preventing many hamate bone breaks. His bat is MLB approved, NCAA approved, and the prototype first used in the major leagues by New York Mets utility infielder Mike Hessman is now in the Baseball Hall Of Fame. Prince Fielder also used the bat in a few games, as did Cory Hart.

Phelan’s bat, as mentioned, has been approved for use by Major League Baseball. His obstacles for extended use of the ProXR bat comes from two sources. First, bat manufacturer Rawlings simply rejected the design. Hillerich & Bradsby, manufacturer of the Louisville Slugger, offered a very polite and almost encouraging response to Phelan’s presentation but as of now it appears to also be a polite rejection.

Secondly, we all know that if there was a demand for the ProXR bat, the bat manufacturers would be falling all over themselves to turn them out. At this point, players are not interested in the bats – most have not suffered hamate injuries, although I am sure many have experienced pain in the hand caused by countless swings during the baseball season. A hamate injury is not as threatening as other types of injuries as it is a one time occurrence following the removal of the hamate bone. Gordon Beckham, a hamate injury survivor, most likely sums it up for most major league players.

“I feel like, for guys who have broken their hamate, they’re not going to use it,” Beckham says. “For guys who have used a different bat for their whole life, it’s going to be difficult to change the feel of what they’re doing.”

For now Grady Phelan will continue to dream his dream of having his bat used extensively in MLB, while MLB players will continue to experience hamate bone injuries without knowing that their injury may have been prevented had they been using one of Phelan’s bats.

Major League Baseball players who have suffered hamate bone injuries: