TORONTO — Umpire Kerwin Danley was out of a hospital a day after being hit in the head by a broken bat, and will be examined by Major League Baseball before he returns to the field.
Danley will remain in Toronto until the symptoms of a “powerful headache” subside, crew chief Dana DeMuth said Wednesday. Once Danley can travel, he will go to MLB’s medical center in Arizona for further tests.
Danley, who was hit in the mask by a pitch last April and missed more than a month, left the field on a stretcher in the sixth inning Tuesday night after being struck by the barrel of Hank Blalock’s bat.
The 47-year-old umpire was taken to hospital and discharged when tests showed no neurological damage. Danley never lost consciousness, DeMuth said.
Todd Tichenor, a Pacific Coast League umpire, replaced Danley and worked third base at the Texas-Toronto game Wednesday night.
“They’re not letting him leave here until his headaches are gone or have subsided to where he can travel,” DeMuth said. “Today it was still hurting him pretty good. He’ll stick around today and we’ll find out day by day.”
“He was only at the hospital for about 20 minutes from what I understood,” DeMuth said. “He was back at the hotel by the time we got out of here. I saw him at the room. Real bad headache but other than that he’s doing all right.”
Blalock’s bat broke in two on an infield pop. The force of the swing sent the barrel flying straight into the face of Danley’s hockey-style mask, knocking him backward.
“He said he felt most of the pressure right up in here,” DeMuth said, pointing between his eyes. “The next thing he knew, he was on the ground.”
The game was delayed 10 minutes while paramedics treated Danley on the field, put him on a stretcher and carried him off.
DeMuth said the crew was checking on Danley by telephone and text messages “just to make sure he was talking back to us.”
DeMuth said the crew had already adjusted its rotations during Tuesday’s game because Danley was hampered by a bad back.
Blalock said he tried to contact Danley to apologize for the accident but had not been able to reach him.
On April 26, 2008, Danley was briefly knocked unconscious when a pitch hit him on the right jaw — Dodgers catcher Russell Martin missed the ball thrown by Brad Penny.
Danley was forced to leave a game in 2006 after he was hit in the collarbone by a pitch.
Danley was a former college baseball teammate with Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn.
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