That was a vicious hit on the Florida pitcher by their catcher.

[ScaldedDawg]

I can still remember seeing our pitcher Nelson Arriette taking a line drive to the face. He never was the same.

 

[HubDawg]

Watching Nelson try to come back from that was one of the most mentally painful things I've seen in sports. They brought in all sorts of sports psychologists to try to help him. I have never felt as bad for someone as I did for him. Whenever he'd go less than an inning and give up 6-7 runs I'd try to imagine what he was going through. More and more fastpitch pitchers at the lower levels are wearing facemasks now. Too many cheekbones been crushed. 43' is pretty dang close. As is 60'6" with a tiny baseball.

 

[Todd4State]

that when a pitcher releases a pitch, he is actually even closer to home plate than the 60 feet 6 inches.

But I can't remember a catcher knocking out a pitcher like that. I remember Mike Piazza nailing Tom Candiotti in the butt when a guy was trying to steal a base- that was pretty funny.

 

[Mjoelner]

at the pitcher's head. Most schools, if they threw it, would run the SS up in front of the bag to cut it off but that's easy to pick up if your're the baserunner at 3rd. We'd have 4 or 6 cover second as usual, the pitcher would squat on the mound never taking his eyes off the catcher and the catcher would gun it at his head. Its up to the pitcher to get his glove up. The pitcher then whips it to 3rd or runs towards the base runner if he's around halfway home. It worked several times and we never killed a pitcher.