What's Causing Brain Cancer In Baseball Players | Sports Fix Chicago

Editor?s note: This post was inspired by a comment on the Boers & Bernstein show regarding the number of brain cancer deaths among baseball players.? Our resident scientician decided to investigate that claim.?

by Ty Alleman

Hold on to your butts folks.? It?s about to get all sciency up in here?

Epidemiology is the study of health and diseases over a defined population.? It is used to help institutions (i.e. the government, universities, pharmaceutical companies, etc.) determine the health of a population that shares common characteristics such as geography, race, gender, occupation, etc.? Epidemiologists aren?t usually called in to evaluate populations such as sports teams or leagues, but there seems to be an event occurring in the world of sports that may warrant such a study.

So why the hell am I even talking about this?? Well, let?s take a look at Major League Baseball.? Some version of professional baseball has been around since the 1870?s.? It is the oldest sport in United States history.? And even though it?s gone through its share of rule changes it is still known as America?s pastime.

Throughout baseball?s history, eleven players who have reached the big league have been diagnosed with brain cancer, including the recently deceased Gary Carter.? Of those eleven, ten of them just happened to have played at least some of their career between 1960 ? 1980.

Players	Career	Type of Brain Tumor
Bobby Bonds	1968 ? 1981	Unspecified
Ken Brett	1967 ? 1981	Unspecified
Dick Howser	1961-1968	Unspecified
Tug McGraw	1965 ? 1984	Glioblastoma multiforme
Bobby Murcer	1965 ? 1983	Unspecified
Johnny Oats	1970 ? 1981	Glioblastoma multiforme
Dan Quisenberry	1979 ? 1990	Unspecified
John Vukovich	1970 ? 1981	Unspecified
Dick Wantz	1965-1965	Unspecified
Gary Carter	1974 ? 1992	Glioblastoma multiforme

Considering baseball is about 140 years old, it seems odd that 91% of the players who were diagnosed with the disease just happen to play in the same twenty year period.? I understand that to the average person the total number of players actually diagnosed with the disease might not seem that impressive, given that 1.6 million of people are expected to be diagnosed with cancer in 2012 alone. ?But when you dig a little deeper into the brain cancer stats, some startling trends start to show for major leaguers who played during 60?s and 70?s.

There are eight different forms of brain cancer, but as a whole it?s pretty rare to get. Only 6.5 out of every 100,000 people are diagnosed with it.? Now compare the overall population diagnosis rate to the rate of diagnosis of baseball players.? As of 2010, about 17,300 players had played professionally in major league baseball.? Starting from 1870, if you break down the amount of players that played per decade that number comes out to about 1235* players per decade.? So the sample size of players being tested (1960-1980) is approximately 2470.? Ten people diagnosed with brain cancer per 2470 total players is obviously a higher rate, but if you actually do the math and adjust the rate of 10/2470 to a sample size of 100,000 people, the number of people who are diagnosed with brain cancer sky-rockets to 404.9.

*Oversimplified math alert:? I could not find the number of players per decade, so I took the average.? This number does not take into account differences due to expansion and roster sizes.?

So what is the cause of this increase?? It?s hard to say.? The brain cancer diagnoses could be a coincidence.? But I find it hard to say that outright because the increased rate among baseball players from the 60?s and 70?s is so significantly higher than the general population average.? I think one area to look at would be environmental changes for the players.? In the 1966, MLB introduced the first field with artificial turf (the Astrodome).? Then in the 1970?s many other ballparks switched from grass to the synthetic stuff, including Comiskey Park, Busch Stadium II, Riverfront Stadium, Three Rivers Stadium, Veterans Stadium, Candlestick Park, Kauffman Stadium, The Kingdome, Exhibition Stadium, Olympic Stadium, the Metrodome, Rogers Centre, and Tropicana Field.? Today, most of these stadiums have either had their surfaces replaced, or are no longer used at all, by their respective teams.

In 2008, USA Today reported that areas with synthetic surfaces (specifically Astroturf) were contaminated with lead.? Studies have been done that show that exposure to lead negatively affects the brain and that regular exposure can lead to increased risk of brain cancer.

I cannot 100 percent conclude anything here because: A) That?s not how science works and B) I do not have the capabilities to test the old astrodome surface at this time.? What I can say, though, is that this is an issue that needs to be examined further by someone who isn?t a college senior writing for a sports blog.? It is the responsibility of Major League Baseball (along with any other pro-sports league who used artificial surfaces during that time) to investigate and determine why such a high rate of former baseball players who played in the 60?s and 70?s developed brain cancer.

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I'm a contributer to Sports Fix Chicago. I focus mainly on the Bulls and Cubs, while occasionally writing about some sports science topics. I host a radio show called The Canadian Leprechaun Show (find it on Facebook). In my spare time I go to Bradley University, majoring in Chemistry. Follow me on Twitter: @tyalleman

Source: http://sportsfixchicago.com/2012/02/27/whats-causing-brain-cancer-in-baseball-players/

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