About three weeks ago, Louie Wisnyai’s parents, Lou and Tammi, lived what may have been the scariest moments of their lives when he was hit in the head by a line drive during a baseball game.
Wisnyai was pitching for the Renegades at a tournament in West Virginia the weekend of June 29 when a ball was lined back up the middle, hitting Wisnyai in the head.
Wisnyai for his part, was pretty matter-of-fact about the ordeal.
“I saw it, I tried to move and I just didn’t move quick enough,” he said.
“Honestly, I was more calm than the players and coaches,” he later said. “I was more shocked (than scared). I could move everything. I was completely fine. I just got hit.”
Wisnyai went down immediately, bleeding profusely from behind his ear. He never lost consciousness.
“I remember everything,” he said. “There was a huge ringing sound and my ear went numb. I just laid there but I heard everything around me at first. I finally heard what it looked like. I thought I was bleeding from inside my ear, but it was a cut on the outside. It wasn’t as bad as I was thinking it was.”
At a hospital in West Virginia, Wisnyai received scary news.
“The doctor in West Virginia said I had a fracture behind the ear and that I did have a concussion,” Louie Wisnyai said. “At ACMC, they couldn’t tell if there was a fracture because there was so much swelling. They said I had signs of a concussion, but it was minor. I never had headaches.
There was swelling and I had dilated eyes. It hit my ear more than my head.”
Despite the injuries not being as bad as could have been, there was still cause for concern.
“They said he had a small fracture,” Lou Wisnyai said. “Obviously, with something like that, you’re going to be concerned. I hate to say it was not that big a deal, but it wasn’t as serious a fracture as they had thought.”
A line drive coming right back to the mound is scary for every pitcher. Wisnyai, an outfielder until just this summer, didn’t really fear what could happen.
“I didn’t really think about it,” Wisnyai said. “It was a one-in-a-million shot because nothing had come back up the middle, especially in that game.”
He concedes inexperience on the hill may have played a part.
“A little bit,” Louie Wisnyai said. “I haven’t done it before. I had only done live pitching like four times before that. I’d like to think I do pretty good.”
Like an old-school rodeo cowboy, Wisnyai wants back up on the horse.
“I heard him trying to convince my wife (to let him pitch again),” Lou Wisnyai said. “He wants to pitch. She said said, ‘No, your father will kill me if I let you.’ ”
“Everyone thinks I’d be shellshocked and I wouldn’t (want to pitch again),” Louie Wisnyai said. “I don’t think I got hit as hard as they hit everyone else. I just take it that I got hit and I have to go throw again. I wouldn’t be afraid to.”
Dad is not so sure.
“I’ve definitely been more boisterous than (my wife’s) been,” Lou Wisnyai said. “I think I overstepped my bounds when I said he wasn’t pitching again without discussing it with her first.
“I don’t know (if we’ll let him pitch again). I will be a little overprotective of my son. I don’t want to see him get hit again.
“I don’t know (if I’ll let him pitch again). On the flipside, I know (Renegades manager) Jim (Savel) could use another arm (for the District 9 tournament). I might have to discuss it with my wife and see if the situation comes around.”
A quarterback for Edgewood, Wisnyai shouldn’t be affected on the gridiron.
“The doctor said it was a fracture and they thought it was more serious,” he said. “If that was the case and it bothered me to get hit, I wouldn’t play defense. That probably would have been my call if it did bother me. Since it doesn’t, I’l l go both ways .”
Ettinger is a freelance writer from Ashtabula.
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