The incident came hours after representatives of the Major League Baseball Players Association and Major League Baseball met to discuss growing concerns about the danger from the explosive nature in which maple bats shatter. O'Nora, the plate umpire for the Rockies-Royals game Tuesday night, was hit on the left side of the head with the barrel of a shattered Miguel Olivo bat and had to leave the game with a gash in his forehead that resulted in him being sent to a hospital for observation. Umpire Brian O'Nora became the latest piece of evidence for those looking to ban maple bats. Lucky? Because a sharp piece of shattered maple, from what is supposed to be a game, sliced into him 2 inches away from blindness? That's lucky? Real "luck" would be never having it happen in the first place. "It hit me and I saw the blood coming out. "The ball (off Nate McLouth's bat) was hit down the right-field line and I was following the ball and didn't even see the bat break," Long recalled. The sharp end of the bat not only left a nasty scar, it damaged a nerve that left part of his upper lip without feeling. Long suffered a gash to the left side of his nose and just above his lip when whirling wood became a near-lethal weapon. Even if he could, he has only half a smile to use. Pirates hitting coach Don Long would like to find some humor in his story, too. They called it a hit instead of an error. I went to field the ball and the head of the bat actually went into my glove. The ball was coming toward me and the bat was coming, too. "I threw the pitch, snapped the bat in half. "Second game of the year in Cleveland," White Sox reliever Matt Thornton recalled. Every baseball player seems to have a story about a close call with the game's newest nemesis, the airborne bat barrel.
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