03/17/2021
Saw this in an umpire group here on Facebook. This story just goes to show how important it is to stress safety during everything we do. Most of our coaches and teams are pretty good with being safe and being where they are supposed to be, but it is important to always be vigilant. Make it known that everyone needs to be behind a fence or in appropriate areas and correct safety measures are being taken. Every day, every game, every pitch from the top of the first to the bottom of the 7th 8th 9th or however long the game goes.
MY WORST DAY IN BASEBALL.
If the moderators would allow me. My name is Russ Chapman. I am a retired paramedic/Battalion Chief (35 years) from the Milford CT Fire department and also a 22-year inner city paramedic. There is an anniversary coming up for me that I dread every year. This happens to be the 30th anniversary, so I wanted to make this a teaching point for all my new umpires this year and also pass this along to all my Brother and Sister Umpires who may read this. I was not an umpire when this event happened.
His name was Peter. He was about 15 years old. He was killed by a batted ball while receiving the ball from the outfielders for the coach during practice. He was standing about 15 feet away to the right front of the coach who was a right-handed batter. A ball came in on one bounce and the coach hit it instead of catching it and shanked it to the right, hitting Peter in the left rear portion of his skull.
It was a beautiful spring day. The call came in as a player down on the field. I wasn’t thinking it was much, we get them all the time, usually an ankle or a wrist, but on arrival I saw a large crowd around Peter. We pulled the ambulance on the field to expedite our transport times. I got to him and kneeled down by his head when he said his last words, “Coach it hurts” and he began to seize. We immediately put him in the ambulance and my partner and I had another firefighter drive us to the closest Trauma Center. The Head Coach, who had a heart condition, rode up front. Peter would not stop seizing. I tried and tried to intubate him (put a tube down his breathing tube) but couldn’t. You see, people with head injuries vomit. If they vomit? I lose the airway and it’s all over. Peter did just that. At that time paramedics did not carry the medicines needed to paralyze a patient to put tubes in their Trachea. We suctioned him aggressively and tried to breath for him in between my attempts to intubate him. It was a 15-minute ride to the nearest Trauma center. The longest 15 minutes of my life. I was totally unsuccessful with any attempts to put that airway in. A failure that I will always live with. We never lost his pulse but Peter never regained consciousness, and was put on life support. When I got back to the firehouse, and cleaned up the back of the ambulance of all the vomit and blood, I found Peter’s spikes. I called the head nurse on the floor to ask if I could bring them up. She knew me very well and said yes. After work I did just that. And I handed them to Peter’s Mom. She put her face to them and smelled them. That was the last time she smelled her son. He donated organs and died 2 days later. I always wonder what Peter would be doing now. He’d be around 45, kids, job, not too long from retirement. What a loss, and a memory that my crew and myself will never forget.
On May 20th we will be getting together to place flowers at the monument behind the back stop at this high school. You see, we all loved baseball, and for that moment in time, Peter was our kid.
What is my whole point in this? Recently I witnessed two umpires allow everyone to stand outside the dugouts of a game. Multiple on deck batters. You can tell the crew was very reluctant to do anything about it as the coaches on both sides were tearing them up that day, and they did not want to make matters worse. The baseball that hit Peter was the same trajectory as a right-handed batter shanking a line drive foul ball into the first base dugout. WE as a profession have to do a better job. We need to include the coaches. What they do the players will do. We have to stop worrying about upsetting people, worrying about being liked or if you are perceived as an unfavorable umpire. Lastly? NO post season nomination is worth anyone’s life. We are talking the potential life or death situation of a player, coach, or anyone else that might be in the way of that baseball. It falls under Game Management. You don’t have to be a jerk about it. Sugar goes a long way, but we have tools to use. If, by the written warning/restriction a coach doesn’t get it? He/she deserves to be ejected. Most of the high school coaches know me by now and know I am easy to get along with but I have this one “thing”. And by the most part they honor it. Please keep them inside. Keep them safe.
It was very cathartic for me to write this. I am not looking for any comments of sympathy. It’ was part of my job and I knew what I was getting into. But hopefully my story will save a Brother / Sister Umpire from having anniversaries you will regret every year.
Thank you.
