Kaiser Carlile, a nine-year-old batboy, died Sunday in Wichita, Kansas, one day after he was accidentally struck in the head with a follow-through swing near the on-deck circle.
Carlile volunteering with the Bee Jays of Liberal, Kansas when he was struck during the National Baseball Congress World Series. The boy's parents told the team they should continue playing,
reported the Wichita Eagle.
"We just lost a little, nine-year-old Bee Jay and it's incredibly sad," Mike Carlile, the general manager of the team, told the newspaper the day after the game. "No one wrote us a book to tell us how to do this. We're just dealing with it the best way we know how and that's to keep coming out and keep honoring Kaiser on the field."
The team also issued an official statement on Sunday as well,
according to CNN.
"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 team's statement read. "Please keep his family and our team in your thoughts and prayers."
The National Baseball Congress, a summer league for college players, was in the middle of its championship tournament when the incident happened. One of the batters accidently hit Carlile while he was warming up, swinging as the boy was grabbing another bat, Liberal team president Nathan McCaffrey told CNN.
McCaffrey said that the boy, who was wearing a helmet at the time, took a few steps backward and fell.
"Just to see him fall, that's what crushes you," he said.
ESPN reported that home-plate umpire Mark Goldfeder, who is also a paramedic, treated the boy at the scene until an ambulance arrived.
In another baseball accident in June, a fan attending a Boston Red Sox game suffered reportedly "life-threatening injuries" after being struck by the shard of a broken bat in the second inning,
wrote CBS Sports.
Brett Lawrie, of the Oakland A's, had his bat shatter while swinging at a pitch from Red Sox left-hander Wade Miley. The game was delayed as the fan was taken out of Fenway Park on a stretcher.