Carlile was running to bring in a bat when he got hit.
By Raif Karerat
Follow @ambazaarmag
WASHINGTON, DC: A 9-year-old bat boy died Sunday evening after getting hit in the head as a baseball player took practice swings in Kansas, his team released.
“With the permission of the family, and with much sorrow and a very broken heart, I regretfully inform everyone that Kaiser Carlile passed away earlier this evening,” the Liberal Bee Jays, an amateur baseball team, announced on Facebook.
According to NBC News, Carlile had been in critical condition since being struck by a bat while wearing a helmet during a game against the San Diego Waves during a National Baseball Congress World Series game in Wichita, Kan.
A witness told NBC affiliate KSNW that the boy was running to bring back a bat after an out when he was hit.
“The bat boy retrieved the other bat and he just ran right by him, and he was swinging, and it hit him in the helmet,” Jim Parks told the station.
“He was as much as part of the team as anybody else was,” said one coach during a press conference on Monday.
A gaggle of Bee Jays, some of them weeping, remembered young Kaiser as an eternally grinning “little brother” who tirelessly shagged balls during batting practice and often provided humor on long bus rides. He was also quick with a word of encouragement, they said during the press conference, according to CNN.
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,” spectator Malachi Lingg told CNN affiliate KAKE. “I felt really bad for the mother — she was right there in the front row and saw it all.”
One player paid tribute to Carlile on Instagram, recalling the camaraderie the young boy shared with the other members of the team.
“Kaiser, you were a little brother I never had,” wrote Kadon Simmons, “You took the field with us every game this summer. You were, and always will be a Bee Jay. No person or team could ask for a better bat boy. It is terrible to see you leave in such a way, but knowing your last moments were on the baseball field makes it easier through this whole process, because you were doing what you loved.”
Carlile was supposed to start the fourth grade at Sunflower Intermediate School this month, reported the Wichita Eagle. In the wake of the tragedy, the Liberal Bee Jays have set up a GoFundMe page for donations to assist with the Kaiser family’s medical expenses and other needs.
1 Comment
Everything should be sunny for a boy like this. His looks, joy, liveliness, goodness…all were the opposite of death and that is why this is so hard to digest. It just goes against all nature. I can’t find the good in this yet. I wish God would explain or at least let us know for sure that Kaiser is in a better place. I can’t imagine any place would be better in his mind than on a baseball field. That’s why I just can’t see anything good here.