Giancarlo Stanton's mask not a first

— -- As you might have heard by now, Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton, whose 2014 season was ended prematurely by a fastball to the face, has been wearing a face-mask attachment on his batting helmet this spring. It looks a lot like a football face mask but with one crucial difference: It's been personalized with a "G" -- Stanton's first initial. 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: 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: • Parker began by wearing a hockey goalie mask, which had been cut off at the top so he could still wear his batting helmet. He wore this for only one plate appearance, the result of which was an intentional walk. (Who could blame the opposing team for not wanting to pitch to a guy who looked like a masked menace?) He then kept the mask on while running the bases. • Parker found that his vision was a bit compromised by the hockey mask, so the Pirates' equipment manager consulted with the Steelers and came up with a two-bar football face mask, complete with a chin strap. • The two-bar mask still interfered slightly with Parker's vision, so that mask was swapped out for a different model, which Parker wore only while running the bases, not while batting. (You can see more photos of Parker's masks here and read more about them here.) Ellis Valentine, Expos, 1980: Valentine, the Montreal right fielder with a cannon for an arm, had his cheekbone shattered in six places when he was hit by a pitch on May 30, 1980. He returned to action wearing a two-bar football face mask similar to the one Parker had tried but cut off to cover just one side of his face. The look was so distinctive that it's now the basis for a T-shirt. Gary Roenicke, Orioles, 1980: After being hit in the face by a pitch, Roenicke wore a partial two-bar football mask similar to Valentine's, only Roenicke's wrapped around a bit more of his face and was painted black, to match the Orioles' color scheme. Charlie Hayes, Rockies, 1994: Hayes, the Colorado third baseman, broke new ground by wearing two different clear face masks. Kinda reminds you of Otto Graham's old Lucite mask, right? A similar mask was worn in 2011 by minor leaguer Chris Wallace. (Interestingly, Hayes wore another mask after moving from the Rockies to the Yankees, but it was the simple plastic attachment that's been common for most masked players over the past 20 years.) Otis Nixon, Twins, 1998: Nixon played for 10 teams over 17 years, including a one-season stopover in Minnesota, where he wore an unusual mask that was sort of football-based, but there was more to it than that. He is, to Uni Watch's knowledge, the last MLB player to wear anything approaching a football-style mask on the field. There's one other case worth mentioning, however: According to this New York Times clipping from September 1959, Indians infielder Billy Martin returned to Cleveland's active roster with "a special helmet fitted with football-type face-guarding bars" after having been hit in the face by a pitch a month earlier. But Martin's game log shows that he didn't play after Aug. 5 -- the day he was beaned -- so he apparently never got to wear his football-style mask in a game. Despite years of diligent effort, Uni Watch has been unable to turn up a photo of this mask. (Have you ever seen a photo of it? If so, please get in touch.) Most other players who've added extra facial protection to their helmets have worn the basic (and rather boring-looking) plastic attachments we're now used to seeing. A partial list of such players includes Marlon Byrd, Mike Devereaux, Chase Headley, Jason Heyward, David Justice, Terrence Long, Kevin Seitzer and Terry Steinbach, among many others. Do you know of any other interesting MLB mask attachments that weren't covered here? If so, you know what to do. Thanks. Finally, it's worth noting that baseball players aren't the only non-football athletes who've dabbled with football-style facial protection. NHL great Bobby Hull once wore a football mask -- the same model worn by NFL Hall of Famer Larry Csonka, in fact.

Because there's more to life than masks?

Paul Lukas considers that 1959 Billy Martin face mask to be one of his personal uni-related "white whales." If you liked this column, you'll probably like his Uni Watch blog, plus you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Want to learn about his Uni Watch membership program, be added to his mailing list so you'll always know when a new column has been posted or just ask him a question? Contact him here.