After suffering a vicious foul ball to the head, Seattle Mariners announcer Rick Rizzs thankfully returned to the booth to finish the broadcast.
Rizzs and radio broadcast partner Gary Hill were on the call for Seattle’s spring training game against the Milwaukee Brewers from American Family Fields of Phoenix Monday night.
In the fifth inning, Milwaukee’s Rhys Hoskins couldn’t quite catch up to a fastball from Seattle right-hander Carlos Vargas, sending a foul straight back over the net and screaming toward the visiting radio booth.
Here’s the audio pic.twitter.com/pNTMepvrxd
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“Swing and a foul,” Rizzs said with haste on the broadcast before a lot of commotion in the booth led to stifled grunts that were clear enough to indicate he was on pain.
“Did it get you?” Hill asked.
“It got me in the head,” Rizzs whispered as he tried to get reoriented.
Recognizing the situation could be serious, Hill quickly took the broadcast to a commercial break, allowing Rizzs to receive immediate attention in the booth. Brewers medical staff and Mariners’ medical director Dr. Hank Pelto rushed in to check on Rizzs.
After the break, Hill informed the audience that Rizzs was doing okay, noting the “scary situation” after his broadcast partner was knocked to the ground by a foul ball. And one inning later, Rizzs was back behind the mic, albeit with a nasty lump on the back of his head.
“Folks, I want to let you know that I took a pretty good shot to the back of my head with a foul ball up here in the radio booth” Rizzs said with a chuckle as he returned to the air “I got a good-sized bump on my head, but I’m going to be okay. My mom always said I’ve had a hard head, Gary. And it paid off today. I could not believe that ball got up here so quickly. It was coming at my face, I turned, it got me in the back of my head.”
And on the very next pitch, a foul ball was sent back toward the booth, although this one wasn’t the “heat-seeking missile” that Hoskins delivered in the fifth.
Hill and Rizzs both thanked the medical staff who checked out the longtime Mariners announcer and gave him the go ahead to finish the game.
“I’m gonna have a heck of a headache tonight,” Rizzs said with a laugh. “How did it get through this small window?”
Considering how it sounded, and by all accounts, how it looked, it was amazing that Rizzs was well enough to continue calling a rather meaningless spring training contest. Rizzs is also expected to be back on the call Wednesday, for the Mariners next game against the Kansas City Royals.