Duck!

Sporting News, The, August 31, 1998 by Steve Marantz

Line drives are harardous to a pitcher's health and his team's success--and the smashes toward the mound are occurring with alarming frequency

The time it takes to read the first five words of this sentence is the time it takes for a line drive to split open a pitcher's head, shatter his arm into jagged bone, double him over gasping for air or cut down his legs as if he were ripened summer wheat.

That's the time it took for a Kelly Stinnett liner to put Astros closer Billy Wagner on the ground July 15, legs twitching, blood trickling from his left ear.

"I saw it," Wagner recalls. "I was just too slow."

Wagner recovered from a concussion and is pitching again, certain to be a factor in the National League postseason picture. The Astros went nearly three weeks without their closer and held first place in the N.L. Central. The Orioles saw their No. 1 starter, Mike Mussina, felled by a Sandy Alomar liner, precipitating a miserable first half for the team. Other clubs, contenders and non-contenders alike, have watched key pitchers get drilled.

Line drives are the bete noire of this glittering season. And as the season moves into its final month, come-backers are an unpredictable "X" factor nobody wants to think about. If, say, Padres ace Kevin Brown went down, San Diego's World Series dreams virtually would vanish.

"It's dangerous not only to your career, but your health," says Giants righthander Orel Hershiser, who survived an Alex Rodriguez liner off his pitching wrist: in June. "I try not to think about it too much. It's just part of the game."

What's it like to be hit by a line drive? Descriptions are sparse because pitchers unlucky enough to be struck all say the same thing--it's over before it begins. Swing, contact, thud, aargh! Our efforts to take you inside a pitcher's head at this unfortunate moment--"See a Different Headache?"--reveal throbbing pain. Pass the aspirin and ice pack.

Brewers lefthander Scott Karl, who saved his face by getting a hand in front of a line drive hit by Montreal's Shane Andrews in April, provides an account:

"I didn't even really see the ball. My initial reaction was to cover my face because that's the most open area I threw my hands up. I heard the crack and I lost it. I knew it was coming back at me. I sensed it.

"That was it. The ball hit me so hard it bounced to our second baseman, who threw him out by five steps. My catcher came running out thinking I had got it in the face.

"I was actually more scared and a little sick to my stomach afterward, just thinking about what could have happened. I saw it the next morning. I watched nay reaction time. I didn't even flinch until the ball was halfway there."

Statistics are not kept on line-drive casualties, but most pitchers and managers believe we are seeing a bumper crop. Randomness is a factor, as always, but variable factors are hitting and pitching philosophies, strength of hitters, hitting equipment, strike zone, fielding technique and visual backgrounds behind the plate.

More pitchers are being hit because more hitters stride toward the plate, more pitchers throw on the outer half of the plate, more sinkers are thrown, hitters are better-conditioned and stronger, more hitters are wearing protective pads (and thus are fearless), bats are lighter and whippier, umpires are calling distended strike zones, fewer pitchers field properly and several new ballparks have blinding backgrounds behind the plate.

Of those, protective hitting pads and the strike zone could be subject to legislative remedies, though no changes are imminent.

No injuries this season have been career-threatening, such as when the Indians' Herb Score was felled by a liner hit by the Yankees' Gil McDougald in 1957; however, a few came close, such as Wagner's, and virtually every incident leaves a stadium eerily quiet as fans try to digest what they've seen. Fortunately, scary as the incidents can look, they oven aren't serious, one reason some teams remain contenders:

* After a 15-day stint on the disabled list, Wagner made three rehab appearances for Class AA Jackson before rejoining the Astros on August 7. In his first six appearances upon his return, Wagner did not allow an earned run. His recovery is as important to the Astros as the trade for Randy Johnson.

* Angels lefthander Chuck Finley left a game July 24 against the Royals after being hit on the left elbow by a Jeff King liner. Finley's fourth-inning exit came as the Royals scored three runs en route to a 4-3 victory. Finley's next start was pushed back a couple of days, whereupon he shut out the Yankees for eight innings. (Finley also had been hit by a line drive in May.)

* Hershiser, whose Giants are in the wild-card hunt, says he did not see the line drive off Rodriguez's bat: "That's one way to get hit. Another is to see but not be able to get out of the way because of no depth perception. Another is if the ball goes in your blind spot."

* A rash of line drives sabotaged Baltimore's staff and may be as responsible as any single factor for the club's poor first half. Mussina's nose was broken (he also suffered facial lacerations) May 14, forcing him to the D.L. and costing him four starts. Doug Drabek was hit in the chest and groin. Reliever Norm Charlton, released in July and now with the Braves, was hit in the nose by a Frank Thomas shot. Armando Benitez was drilled in the leg. Arthur Rhodes took a Ken Griffey Jr. shot in the gut.