GREENBRAE, Calif. -- A devastating injury that left a baseball player from Marin Catholic High School hospitalized in a medically induced coma Monday night after being hit in the head by a line drive has renewed a call to ban metal bats from being used in high-school games.

The push to ban such metal bats is nothing new, but the cause has become a personal mission for one Kentfield family.

While young players love the metal bats for their weight -- they’re lighter than their wooden counterparts and make it easier to hit crowd-pleasing home runs -- a growing number of parents argue that the bats simply make the game to dangerous too players in the field.

Sitting outside Marin General Hospital Monday evening where his son continued treatment for an injury he sustained during a game last week, Bjorn Sandberg said the popular bats need to go.

"It's all about hitting home runs. That's the stuff that gets on ESPN,” said Sandberg. “But we have to stop. We have to stop."

Gunnar Sandberg -- a starting second baseman for Marin Catholic's varsity team -- had just taken the mound as a relief pitcher Thursday night when the second batter up hit a line drive that nailed Sandberg in the head.

"Immediately, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him go down,” said Sandberg. “At first [I] was in disbelief; then I made my way down to the field."

Sandberg was rushed to Marin General where a CAT scan revealed a skull fracture above his right ear.

His condition worsened Friday. Concerned about swelling of his brain, doctors rushed the teen in for emergency surgery.

"They cut his skull open to allow the brain to swell,” explained his father. “It improved his condition and put him in an induced coma and that's where he is now."

Marin Catholic varsity baseball coach Mike Firenzi said the ball was traveling at 130 miles per hour when it struck Sandberg.

"Most horrific thing I've ever seen in 20 years as a high school baseball coach," said Firenzi. "These things are designed to actually trampoline the ball off the bat like that."

Despite the advantages the bats give to young players he coaches, Firenzi called them dangerous to the game.

"If it was up to me, I'd knock them out tomorrow," said Firenzi.

But at Monday night's matchup between the freshman teams at Marin Catholic and San Marin, aluminum bats were being used, sending balls flying towards players in the field at high velocities.

“Going back to wood bats, people will still get hit,” said a concerned Sandberg. “People will still be injured. But if we can lessen the impact -- if we can do anything to avoid anyone else from going through this -- I don't know what else we could do but follow this through."

The Sandbergs and Coach Ferenzi have reached out to a number of Oakland's A's and San Francisco Giants players to get their support on a metal-bat ban given that the bats are not allowed in professional baseball.

The Sandbergs remain by their son's side at Marin General Monday night where Gunnar Sandberg was listed in stable condition.