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superman7515
August 3rd, 2015, 02:03 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/03/us/kansas-batboy-kaiser-carlile-death/index.html


(CNN)They're young competitors with, doubtless, a common goal -- to make it to the National Baseball Congress World Series championship -- but this weekend, everyone, even their opponents, were rooting for the Liberal Bee Jays.

Some might question why the Bee Jays were even taking the field when their bespectacled, baseball-loving batboy, Kaiser Carlile, died Sunday after being struck in the head with a bat a day earlier, but it was a decision that wasn't made flippantly. Ultimately, the team decided, the 9-year-old would have wanted the games to continue.

"When the Bee Jays decided to continue Saturday's game after a team meeting in the outfield, they did so because they concluded it's what Kaiser would have wanted," Bob Lutz, a columnist for The Wichita Eagle, wrote in Sunday's newspaper (http://www.kansas.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/bob-lutz/article29829799.html#storylink=cpy).

Haysville, Kansas, Aviators coach Gabe Grinder, whose team would go on to be shut out by the Bee Jays on Sunday, told Lutz that Kaiser was enamored with being a batboy.

"We had a chance to play at Liberal this summer and we got a chance to see their batboy. That kid's full of life and he loves doing what he does," Grinder said.

Kaiser had been the team's batboy all season, and despite the high stakes in Saturday's game against the San Diego Waves, it was business as usual at Wichita's Lawrence-Dumont Stadium as Kaiser trotted out to the on-deck circle to collect a bat that had just been used, Nathan McCaffrey, the Liberal, Kansas, team's president, said in a statement (https://www.facebook.com/LiberalBeeJays/posts/10152939836481175).


A Bee Jays batter was in the on-deck circle taking warmup swings and accidentally hit the youngster in the head, the statement said. Kaiser was wearing a helmet, but the blow knocked him to the ground, witnesses told local media.

"Just to see him fall, that's what crushes you," McCaffrey said.

Fan Mickie Schmith likened the sound to that of a bat cracking against a baseball, while another spectator, Malachi Lingg, told CNN affiliate KAKE (http://www.kake.com/home/headlines/Batboy-injured-at-NBC-baseball-tournament-320387561.html) that she heard screaming after Kaiser was struck.

The batter "didn't see him at all and took a swing right as the batboy went by and hit him right in the back of the head," she told the station. "I felt really bad for the mother -- she was right there in the front row and saw it all."...

superman7515
August 3rd, 2015, 02:04 PM
Very sad situation, and I don't mean to detract from that... Iknow, I know... "Not the time"... But the team name is "Liberal Bee Jays"... xthumbsupx

ursus arctos horribilis
August 3rd, 2015, 02:19 PM
Very sad situation, and I don't mean to detract from that... Iknow, I know... "Not the time"... But the team name is "Liberal Bee Jays"... xthumbsupx

I had the same thought. It is an unfortunate name to have. This is sad man, accidents taking kids just really hits you.

344Johnson
August 3rd, 2015, 04:47 PM
Honestly I don't know who I feel worse for, the player or the family.

Obviously it would feel terrible to lose a child but the player.... Oof. That's gotta be very difficult.

clenz
August 3rd, 2015, 04:53 PM
I remember taking some soft toss swings along the batting cage in high school. Didn't see the assistant coach (he was 72ish years old at that point...he had all kinds of stories from the time when Satchel Paige came and played on our field) who was running the jugs machine inside the cage bend over to pick up some jugs balls that were in front of us.

I will never forget the hollow ping-thump sounds less than a second a part from the ball hitting my bat and then his head.

He dropped instantly and didn't move for probably 10 minutes. It was the most scared I've been in my life as I legitimately thought I killed him. The pool of blood around him was out of a movie after someone was shot.

Thankfully he was out of the ER that night with just 12 staples and was at practice, just watching, the next day.

I can't imagine what I'd be like today if he had died. This is incredibly tragic.

Laker
August 3rd, 2015, 06:00 PM
Terrible tragedy. The boy who died, and the one who accidentally hit him with the swing. That kid will need a lot of help and support.