A baseball broadcaster suffered a scary moment in the booth when he was struck by a ‘pretty good shot’ to the back of his head.
Rick Rizzs, who serves as the lead radio voice for the MLB‘s Seattle Mariners, was on duty on Monday when he got hit by a foul ball.
He was covering the spring training game between the Mariners and the Milwaukee Brewers.
The frightening moment occurred in the fifth inning after Seattle pitcher Carlos Vargas threw a fastball to Milwaukee first baseman Rhys Hoskins.
Hoskins fouled the ball back, over a net and through a window into the visiting radio booth.
While the game wasn’t televised, the moment the ball struck Rizzs was heard on a radio broadcast.
“Swing and a foul,” the announcer said, before the ball smacked him on the head as he covered the game at the American Family Fields of Phoenix baseball park in Maryvale, Arizona.
“Did it get you?” his broadcast partner Gary Hill then asked.
Rizzs, who sounded dazed after the hit, replied, “Oh man, it hit me in the head.”
Hill then threw to an impromptu commercial break, saying, “we’re gonna take a quick break here”.
He explained what happened to Rizzs when the broadcast returned.
“Here’s what happened, a ball came up to our booth and Rick got hit,” he said.
“He’s okay, he’s fine, he’s up and next to me. He’s being checked out, it’s just a scary situation.”
According to the Huffington Post, Rizzs returned to his broadcast duties in the seventh inning.
He told fans he was ‘sore’ and had a ‘good-sized bump’ on his head but was going to be okay after the hit.
“My mom always said I’ve had a hard head, Gary, so it paid off today,” Rizzs joked, making light of the incident.
“I could not believe that ball got up here that quickly.
“It was coming at my face, I turned, and it got me in the back of the head.”
Rizzs went on to thank Brewers’ training staff as well as Mariners’ medical director, Dr. Hank Pelto, for their help.
He later quipped: “I’m going to have a heck of a headache tonight.”
Seattle went on to lose the game 7-5 against Milwaukee.
Interestingly, Monday was not the first time Rizzs has had a run-in with a rogue baseball in the booth.
Back in 2022, the Mariners shared a video of the announcer dodging a foul ball that knocked his water bottle off the table.
“Holy smokes… that came in hot!” Rizzs said at the time.
“I’ve got water all over the place, I didn’t have time to get out of the way!”
