Dave Parker, Pirates, 1978: Any discussion of specialized baseball headgear has to begin with the Cobra. After fracturing his jaw and cheekbone in a home plate collision with Mets catcher John Stearns on May 30, 1978, he returned to the lineup a few weeks later and quickly cycled through a series of bizarre-looking attempts to protect his injured face:Minnesota Twins Face Masks

Stanton is, to Uni Watch's knowledge, the first MLB player to have a personalized element on his mask. But he's far from the first to wear a face-guard attachment on his helmet, and he's not even the first to wear a football-style mask. With that in mind, let's take a trip down memory lane and revisit a few of the ballplayers who've commingled the gridiron and the diamond by putting football-style face masks on their batting helmets:Oakland Athletics Face Masks

"We're trying to double down on (preventing) high-risk close contacts during game day," NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills said on Tuesday. "Our No. 1 priority is the health and safety of everyone involved," Sills added. "We want to be as safe as possible and that's why we go through the detailed exercise of contact tracing. That's why we go through the detailed exercise of identifying high-risk contacts. We continue to consider that every one of our 32 clubs are vulnerable to infection every single day we're in business, just like all of us are in the country right now and we have to be extremely vigilant in the measures that we know right now mitigate risks."New York Yankees Face Masks

MLB and FOCO are teaming up to support Feeding America and Second Harvest Canada by donating all MLB proceeds from the sale of licensed Braves face coverings.