Please send your thoughts and prayers for J.A. Happ, pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays, who took a hard hit line drive directly off of his head in tonight's game in Tampa. J.A. (who goes by "Jay") is from my home town area in Central Illinois, and went to the same high school that I did, although some 20 years later. I've followed his career very closely (hardly ever missing a single pitch he's thrown in the majors), so of course I was watching the game tonight on MLB.TV. Warning: it's not pretty...

http://www.mlbdailydish.com/2013/5/7/4310406/j-a-happ-injury-blue-jays

Watching this live was quite difficult for me. I sure hope this young man hasn't just suffered any life changing injuries. By all accounts he's a great guy and quite a humble gentleman.

Edited May 8, 201313 yr by Wmcmanus

Prayers sent. That looked bad.

That looked awful. I hope he's ok.

Just saw that, too, Wayne.  Hope for a speedy and complete recovery.

Good thoughts sent. Hoping for a speedy and full recovery.

The only info of any kind I can find on the internet about his condition, although completely unofficial, is at least encouraging:

"I think the last indication was that he was alert and feeling better and had gone for a CT scan. That's the last I heard," Toronto pitcher R.A. Dickey said.

Wow, looked nasty!  Hopefully good news and a full recovery.....

Ouch!  One wonders at what point they'll institute some sort of head protection for pitchers.  Years ago I watched something like this happen during a casual softball game and it freaked me out pretty good.  It took the guy over a year to fully recover from the headaches, vertigo and he suffered permanent hearing damage to the ear that was struck by the ball.

Saw the replay last night too. Yowza that looked bad. Here is hoping he makes a quick and complete recovery.

 

This happened to a pitcher on the A's last year too. He recovered and is now pitching for the D-Backs.

Happ released from hospital.

That's great news!  It's like a Christmas miracle after seeing that footage.

Indeed it is.  I saw a reply on mlb.com and I fought not to puke.  The sound was horrifying.

Yikes.  And not that long after Brandon McCarthy last year, whose agent is a client of ours, and was quite shaken by that incident.  Not that two is a huge trend, but it seems like there must be some sort of solution to at least slightly decrease the risk of these incidents.  At least the big leaguers don't use aluminum bats!

Great news!  He seems to be in good enough spirits, too.  Hopefully no permanent issues.

He was so, so, lucky. Just a few inches in any direction, he could have lost an eye, had his nose and mouth destroyed, or even been killed with a direct hit to him temple.

He's already given a press conference and is relaxed and coherent: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=26949285&source=MLB&c_id=mlb&tcid=facebook_embedded_player

That's good to hear

He's in uniform on the bench tonight watching the game. Just unreal that he didn't get seriously injured. I think what saved him was that his head was at a pretty good angle relative to the direction the ball was travelling at, so it was more of a glancing blow than it appeared to be. I was thinking it would be really bad because the ball travelled half way down the right field line. No! It would have been really bad if the ball had dropped right in front of him!

Great news.