In the moments after a young Braves fan was struck in the head by a foul ball Tuesday night, players on the field with both the Braves and Brewers were stunned and visibly shaken. In the hours that followed, they had time to contemplate and react and did: players from both teams reached out to the injured young boy and his family.
Braves players Chris Johnson and Gerald Laird visited him in an Atlanta area hospital after Tuesday night’s game, taking a bat signed by the Braves, hats, shirts and tomahawks. Carlos Gomez, the Brewers’ center fielder who fouled the ball sharply into the stands beyond the Braves’ dugout, went to the hospital to see him Wednesday as well.
Johnson and Laird said they received word that the boy was doing OK Wednesday and was in good spirits.
“It’s tough,” Johnson said. “You don’t ever want to see anyone get hurt, when people are coming and supporting you and watching the game, especially a little kid. As players we know how much that hurts to get hit by a ball. And he got hit in the head by it. I can’t imagine how hard that ball was coming off the bat. We’re just thankful he’s all right.”
Johnson said he didn’t see the boy get hit but he, like many others, could hear it.
“It sounded like it hit two barrels, off Gomez’s barrel, then off another one,” the Braves’ third baseman said. “It’s scary stuff. I’m just glad he’s all right.”
Johnson said when he, his fiancé and Laird got the hospital the boy was asleep, but they were able to talk to his parents, who appreciated the gesture. They reported back that their son was happy to wake up and see his gifts Wednesday morning.
“We heard he got his stuff,” Johnson said. “He got his autographed stuff, and he was smiling and laughing and stuff. That’s good sign.”
His parents told Johnson and Laird it was their son’s first game.
“You never want to see something like that happen, especially in a ballgame, catching, and seeing the ball come off the bat,” said Laird, who was behind the plate in the seventh inning when it happened. “It’s one of those things where you just hope it misses someone and last night it didn’t. You just feel for him. He was a young kid and he’s here to enjoy the game and watch some of his favorite players play baseball and next thing you know he’s in the hospital. The best part about it is he’s doing all right and he’s going to come back and enjoy a game with his family and that’s the most important thing.”
Julio Teheran, who was pitching at the time the boy was injured, had planned to send the game ball from his second career shutout of the 5-0 win to his mother in his native Colombia. He changed his mind and said Wednesday he wanted to send the ball to the boy who was injured.
Teheran had gone down into a crouch on the mound shortly after the boy was struck and carried off by his father to seek medical help. Gomez kneeled down outside the batter’s box in, visibly shaken. He said a prayer and gave the sign of the cross before stepping back in when play resumed.
Gomez tweeted Wednesday afternoon that he visited the boy and signed the ball for him.
“When it’s a little kid, it hurt my chest,” Gomez told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “It was important for me to have the opportunity to see him and stay with him for 30 minutes. He was really happy. At least mentally I feel good and I can perform today. I was upset.”
Gomez became a well-known figure in Atlanta last September, when he incited a benches-clearing confrontation by shouting at former Braves pitcher Paul Maholm as he circled the bases on a home run. Former Braves catcher Brian McCann made national news that night after he met Gomez up the third base line, shouting at him while blocking his path to the plate.
Gomez had spent the first two games of the series getting booed by Braves fans at Turner Field. But he got positive reaction from a lot of Braves fans on Twitter Wednesday.
“Life is crazy,” Gomez said. “Before they hate me. Now they love me.”
Braves players — and McCann too, for that matter — seemed to have put that Gomez incident from last year in the past and moved beyond it. Gomez’s reaction to the injured boy Wednesday made a good impression on them.
“The history (there) I think is just being in the moment, being in the game and being fiery,” Johnson said. “That guy plays with his heart on his sleeve and has that passion. I think once the game is over, he’s just like anybody else and he was feeling for that kid and obviously showing that he had a lot of class too. Can’t really judge him by that one little incident that happened last year.”
