Denard Span hit a hard foul ball that struck his mom in the chest during
Wednesday’s game. She was treated by paramedics and back in the stands
minutes later.
“My mom is feeling ok right now!” Span later
posted on his Twitter account.
Wanda Wilson was wearing a Span jersey and
sitting with about 20 family members and friends near the third-base
dugout. Span took a defensive swing in the first inning and sent a liner
into the low box seats, hitting her near the shoulder.
A stunned Span sprinted into the stands and
stayed with his mother while she got treatment. The split-squad game
against the New York Yankees was delayed for a few minutes as she walked
to first aid, and the Twins said she was sore but OK.
“What the odds of that happening?” Twins
pitching coach Rick Anderson said. “I’ve never seen it before. It’s
crazy. I’m standing there right next to it and I heard it and it’s just,
‘Oh no!, that didn’t sound good.’ She’s on the ground and I’m saying,
‘Please don’t be the head or something’ because it sounded so ugly.”
Span had left the clubhouse by the time
reporters were allowed in after the Twins’ 4-2 win.
“It happened so fast,” Twins starting pitcher
Brian Duensing said. “I talked to Denard about it and he said once he
found the ball after he hit it, then he realized right away it was his
mother. He knew right away.”
“It’s scary. From what I heard, what he said,
she’s all right. It could have been way worse,” he said. “They left
together. We’ll know tomorrow. I asked if she was all right and he said,
‘Yes, she’s fine.'”
Span returned to the plate and struck out on
the next pitch from Phil Hughes. The Twins originally said Span would
leave the game, but his mother was sitting in a different seat by the
bottom of the first inning and he went to play center field.
Span flied out in the second inning, then left
in the bottom of the third, telling a team official he wasn’t mentally
into the game. Span and his mother spent time together after he
departed.
“It affected him. He wanted to come out, so we
took him out,” Anderson said. “He went and saw her, and then he said,
‘I want to stay in.’ He’s real close and obviously it’s his mom, and
finally we just said go.”
“It tore him up pretty good. She’s doing well.
They said she was fine and he got a chance to be with her. I’m sure
he’ll probably buy her a nice dinner tonight,” he said.
Span tied for the league lead in triples last
year, helping the Twins win the AL Central.
Anderson said a few inches either way could’ve
made for a much more serious injury.
“It hit her in the meat. I guess if it got up
on the bone or the shoulder blade or something, the trainer said it
could have shattered it. No place is good, but if it had to be
somewhere, at least it didn’t get a bone,” he said.
Span was born and raised in Tampa. He
regularly volunteers to make the long trip from the Twins’ spring
training home in Fort Myers when Minnesota visits the Yankees so he can
see his family.
Spring training ballparks are much smaller
than stadiums where regular-season games are held. But along with being
more cozy, spring parks can be more dangerous because fans often sit
closer to the field.
The backstop netting at George M. Steinbrenner
Field goes all the way from behind the plate to the roof, and extends
toward the dugouts. Span’s mother was sitting only a few rows off the
field, in the first section where the netting ends.
“It’s kind of a dangerous spot,” Hughes said.
“I think they should move the net all the way to the dugout because you
can get those foul balls like that.”
Fans are often reminded to be alert for balls
and bats that might go flying into the stands. But with objects
traveling so fast, such injuries become perils of the game.
Hall of Famer Bob Feller heard about the Span
accident and recalled the time he threw a pitch that was fouled off and
hit his mom — on Mother’s Day.
“She was sitting right next to the dugout at
Comiskey Park in Chicago,” the 91-year-old Feller said at Cleveland’s
camp in Goodyear, Ariz. “It hit her right above the eye, broke her
glasses and she needed seven stitches. It was in 1939. Some Mother’s Day
for her, wasn’t it? I was pretty upset, but had to keep on pitching.”