WALLER, Texas – Umpire Linell Williams was smiling Monday night even though his right eye was swollen with stitches above it.
“Them kids can hit man, them kids can hit,” said the 51-year-old.
Williams was feeling better after taking a terrifying shot at The Rac Baseball complex in Waller on Sunday while umpiring a youth select baseball game involving 12-year-olds between the Warriors and Banditos ballclubs.
Williams said he never saw the line drive coming.
“I knew I was hit, so my mind said go down to one knee to calm yourself down. So as I got to one knee, that’s when I could see coaches running out to me,” said Williams.
They were there in seconds, and no one hesitated in taking action.
“The Banditos coach realized I was bleeding, and this guy ripped his shirt off and said, ‘Man, no, put this on your eye,’” said Williams.
Then a Warriors Coach told Williams, “Whatever you do, don’t go down. Stay up man because you want to stay conscious. Stay up, we are going to get you to the shade.”
Once in the dugout, others helped keep Williams calm until paramedics arrived.
“By looking at what’s going on in your eye, the diagnosis, we really believe that you have bleeding on the brain,” Williams said the paramedics told him.
He was loaded into an ambulance, taken to a nearby fire station, and flown by helicopter to the Texas Medical Center where upon arriving doctors told him, “We got to take you to surgery, Mr. Williams.”
As he was being prepared for surgery, a cat scan showed no bleeding on the brain, only a severe fracture and stitches.
Less than 24 hours after everything he had gone through, Williams wanted to convey a message to the young boy that hit him.
“Tell him to keep his bat on the ball, keep hitting hard. Don’t stop hitting hard, don’t stop playing hard. It’s not his fault at all,” said Williams.
Williams agreed to speak with KPRC 2 because he wanted to “show the love between the parents and the coaches to the umpires,” which he said routinely is not the case in youth sports.
Williams hopes to be back on the diamond in the near future.
UPDATE:
On Wednesday, KPRC 2 caught up with Williams who went to visit one of the youth baseball teams. Williams said he is continuing to show progress every day.
