04/19/24
August 03, 2015
9-Year-Old Bat Boy Dies After Being Struck by Bat: A 9-year-old bat boy died Sunday in the hospital after getting hit in the head with a bat by a baseball player taking practice swings in Kansas a day earlier. Kaiser Carlile was wearing a helmet when he was struck during a Liberal Bee Jays game against the San Diego Waves in Wichita Saturday afternoon. A witness said the boy was running to bring back a bat after an out when he was hit by a batter taking a practice swing. "Kaiser, you were a little brother I never had," player Kadon Simmons said. "You took the field with us every game this summer. You were, and always will be a Bee Jay. No person or team could ask for a better bat boy."
but the adult baseball player who wasn't paying attention to his surroundings while swinging a bat was being a reckless idiot
Wait, what?
He was taking practice swings. It's generally considered a bad idea to get near a batter who is doing that, but this poor kid wasn't paying attention and ran into the swing.
The question is why are 9-year-old kids anywhere near the field of play. MLB has at least now figured out that small children aren't always the best arbiter of decision making...
posted by grum@work at 01:08 PM on August 03, 2015
If your team has bat boys as young as this kid, it's the responsibility of every player between batters to know where the bat boys are before taking a swing -- even in the on-deck circle. No one should expect a nine-year-old kid to entirely look out for himself.
According to one story, Carlile was retrieving a bat near the on-deck circle. It seems reasonable to expect the player to know that a bat near him on the ground means a bat boy is coming to get it.
I'm not saying string him up. But we hold adults accountable for thoughtless acts like leaving an infant in a hot car. This is an equivalent situation -- a foreseeable, horribly tragic mistake.
posted by rcade at 02:43 PM on August 03, 2015
Carlile was retrieving a bat near the on-deck circle.
Even more reason that it isn't the batter's fault.
There is something that batters do in the on-deck circle, and that is swing the bat. It is assumed that you do it in the on-deck circle because there isn't anyone else around, and doing it in the dugout would be dangerous. So you stand out in the on-deck circle to warm up by swinging the bat, knowing that you are away from everyone else.
If someone else approaches you from behind or side (because we assume that the kid didn't run in the batter's field of view), then how is the batter supposed to know?
It would be like blaming someone swinging in a batting cage for hitting someone on a follow through because that person came from the blind-side in the middle of a swing.
posted by grum@work at 03:40 PM on August 03, 2015
If the game was between batters, players don't normally assume it's safe to take an on-deck swing at that time. There's a lot of movement going on. Bat boys are on the field retrieving the bat if necessary and bringing balls to the ump.
I am surprised you're putting zero responsibility on the player to be situationally aware when he knows that young kids are serving as bat boys. The on-deck circle is not a magic zone where a bat can always be swung with no consequences.
posted by rcade at 03:51 PM on August 03, 2015
As an aside, I was hit in the head with a bat when I was a year older than Carlile. We were hitting tennis balls onto my roof and a friend took the bat from me and didn't let me get clear of him before taking a mighty swing. My jaw broke and was wired shut for two months. I shudder to think what a strike at my temple would've done.
But I loved baseball so much this injury didn't deter me in the slightest. I bet this kid would've been the same way had he been fortunate enough to survive. He was related to the team's general manager and had been their bat boy all summer.
The same friend clobbered an ump with a bat later by accident. He was a menace.
posted by rcade at 03:59 PM on August 03, 2015
I would put zero responsibility on the batter unless there was some evidence they were being extraordinarily reckless. You can go out there for any one at bat and avoid hitting someone but when you go out there a million times eventually someone is going to be somewhere you weren't anticipating. Wait for one person to clear and someone else comes running from a different direction. Every year you see something on the field happen that you've never seen before and the same can be true for things happening adjacent to the field.
As my aside, I once knocked out my grandparent's blue heeler when it tried to fetch a ball my brother had soft-tossed to me. The dog usually waited to fetch until after I hit the ball but not that time for whatever reason. That was 20 years ago now but I can still see it happening in slow motion in my mind's eye. She lay there twitching for about 5 minutes before getting up and acting like it never happened. Toughest dog I've ever known and she didn't stop chasing the ball until we put her in the ground.
posted by tron7 at 05:44 PM on August 03, 2015
Bat boys are on the field retrieving the bat if necessary and bringing balls to the ump.
Yes, and they are usually old enough to know that you don't go anywhere near the on-deck circle when a batter is warming up.
I feel bad for the kid and it is a tragedy, but the batter should take zero blame for what happened if all he was doing was his normal warm-up swings in the on-deck circle.
It's like blaming a driver if a kid darts out into traffic from between parked cars and gets hit. All drivers know that there are kids outdoors, but no one thinks they have responsibility to be "situationally aware" when a kid darts out in front of their vehicle 10 feet away when traveling at 25 mph.
If the baserunner coming home in the video I linked to had plowed over Dusty Baker's kid, would you have put blame on him for doing so, because he wasn't "situationally aware" that there was a child who MIGHT wander into a dangerous area where they shouldn't be?
posted by grum@work at 06:25 PM on August 03, 2015
I wouldn't expect a player during play to look out for small children. After watching that play live, I thought J.T. Snow's quick thinking in scooping up Baker's son was amazing.
But running the base paths during play is a different situation than being in the on-deck circle between batters -- or even during someone else's at-bat. You have more chance to pay attention to what's going on around you.
If you believe the player is 100% blameless, isn't that an argument for not allowing young children like Carlile to be bat boys? It's not responsible to expect a nine-year-old to assure his own safety in that job.
Looking up Darren Baker, I found out the MLB doesn't let children be bat boys until they're 14. There's a big difference in maturity between 14 and 9. It seems more reasonable to expect a 14-year-old to exercise the proper caution himself (or herself) around the on-deck circle.
All drivers know that there are kids outdoors, but no one thinks they have responsibility to be "situationally aware" when a kid darts out in front of their vehicle 10 feet away when traveling at 25 mph.
True, but I'll bet you feel a responsibility to drive more slowly and carefully in your neighborhood if there are a lot of kids in it. I drive slowly and try to avoid the temptation to mess with the phone or radio when I'm in the neighborhood. A three-year-old darted out once and I was fortunate enough to be paying attention that time. Since then I've tried to be justifiably careful.
posted by rcade at 07:43 PM on August 03, 2015
If you believe the player is 100% blameless, isn't that an argument for not allowing young children like Carlile to be bat boys? It's not responsible to expect a nine-year-old to assure his own safety in that job.
Yeah. Which is pretty much what I said in my first post.
Blame the league, blame the team, blame the parents, but don't blame the batter in the on-deck circle.
posted by grum@work at 11:51 PM on August 03, 2015
One thing I pondered while contemplating this tragedy is whether the on-deck circle could be phased out (note I said "could," not "should"). Batters could prepare in a room behind the dugout in Major League parks and bigger minor league and college facilities. This would make possible last-minute instruction from coaches. Video screens could show the on-field situation.
The only consequence of the change I can think of is that the on-deck player sometimes acts as a baserunning coach at home when play dictates it.
posted by rcade at 07:41 PM on August 04, 2015
The problem with hiding the next batter is that he doesn't get to see the pitcher throw to the previous batter. As well, it will add extra time to have the next batter come all the way from the bowels of the dugout each time. If you assume an extra 10 seconds...
In the American League so far this season, there is an average of 37.5 plate appearances for each team, meaning that there are 57 times (37.5 times 2 teams, minus the first batter for each team in each inning) a player would walk from the hidden on-deck circle. That's another 9 minutes and 30 seconds of extra time added onto each game.
People complain about the length of games already...
posted by grum@work at 09:00 PM on August 04, 2015
The time issue is significant, but I question whether the on-deck circle is a better place to see a pitcher than a TV broadcast. We're behind the plate watching on the tube.
posted by rcade at 09:16 PM on August 04, 2015
Obviously a tragic accident, but the adult baseball player who wasn't paying attention to his surroundings while swinging a bat was being a reckless idiot. If there's a conscious effort here to protect him from scrutiny, it should stop.