Matheny tells concussed Belt to ‘go slow’

Brandon Belt is expected to miss the rest of the season with a fourth concussion, which wouldn’t surprise a former Giants catcher whose concussions helped make Major League Baseball change its mind-set on head injuries.

St. Louis manager Mike Matheny, with the Giants in 2005 and 2006, said he had between 25 and 30 documented concussions in his minor- and big-league career. It was an era in which home-plate collisions were welcomed and sacrificing your brain and playing with your bell rung were badges of courage.

“It sounds like a lot,” Matheny said of the concussions, “but I caught for 17 years. That number’s probably low. I had one season I got flattened seven times. That’s just the way we were taught to play the game.”

Belt is on the concussion disabled list and hasn’t played since Aug. 4, when he was hit on the helmet by Arizona lefty Anthony Banda with a 79-mph curveball. It was Belt’s third concussion with the Giants. He had another in college. Matheny’s advice for Belt? “Be smart and go slow,” Matheny said. “Get as much information as you can. Make sure that you don’t let anything get in the way of doing the right thing for your own well-being.”

Matheny said he’s still affected by the head injuries a decade after he was forced to retire. He has trouble in boats and on roller-coasters.

He said he’s thankful, nevertheless, for the “forward thinking” of Giants trainers Stan Conte and Dave Groeschner, who were groundbreaking with their research and protected him by prohibiting him from playing; Matheny admits he had a “pseudomacho image.”

Matheny was forgetful on and off the field. He recalls calling his wife from the car to ask where he was heading. He also said he tried more than once to drive away from a Half Moon Bay gas station with the nozzle still in his tank. “I couldn’t multitask,” he said.

Matheny makes himself available to anyone with head injuries and commends baseball for how far it has evolved on concussions, adding there’s much more to learn about prevention.

“It’s so subjective,” he said. “Each person has a tolerance that we don’t understand.”