Baseball coach Mike Coolbaugh hit by a ball and dies

This actually did happen before: back in 1920 Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians was killed by a "spitball", a greased up ball thrown by a New York Yankee's pitcher. You can read all about it here, it's pretty freaky...

http://www.geocities.com/unusualkentucky/baseballdeath.html

An umpire, Cal Drummond, was seriously injured by a foul tip in an Orioles game on June 10, 1969.  He died on a rehab assignment on May 30, 1970.

BaseballLibrary.com: Charlton's Baseball Chronology - 1970

It is certainly bizarre in that it happened at an advanced professional level, and also bizarre that it happened to a coach (and not a player).

There have been incidents of death by batted ball in youth amateur baseball, but it usually involves the pitcher.  The pitcher is the player closest to the batter and, due to the motion involved in throwing the pitch, often in a comprised position as it relates to fielding the ball.

I played D-1 College ball back in the 70's - pitched for Akron University - now in the Mid-American Conference.  Back then we were not in the MAC but we played some MAC teams.  There was a pitcher for Miami of Ohio who was throwing BP in an indoor batting cage and got hit in the forehead by a line drive  and was killed.  It's rare - but it does happen.  Since I threw BP in the cage regularly it sure made me think.  Now they have screens to duck behind after you release the ball, but back then we used to take a gymnastic pommel horse and throw a wrestling mat over it - low enough to throw over, but you had to duck down pretty low to get any protection.  It can be a dangerous sport, but it's a pretty freakish accident if someone dies.  How sad.

There is a postscript to this story:

After the 2007 regular season, the Colorado Rockies announced that the players voted to award Coolbaugh's widow, Amanda, a full share of their playoff winnings after winning the National League wild card playoff berth. [10] Rockies general manager Dan O'Dowd said "when I heard about what the players did, I almost cried." on November 8, 2007, because of Coolbaugh's death, MLB general managers decided that base coaches will wear some sort of head protection starting in the 2008 season.

From Wikipedia