Fans get souvenir after errant bat lands in stands

By The Associated Press

Michael Covey usually takes his glove when he goes to a Major League Baseball game. He forgot his mitt recently and, sure enough, a foul ball bounced off his hand during a Texas Rangers game in Arlington, Texas.

A bigger prize would be coming his way a little later in the evening. Rangers catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia lost the handle on his bat as he struck out against Houston's Chris Sampson during the seventh inning. The bat soared into the stands, where it struck Covey's wife Nicole on the left leg and bounced into his hands.

Covey made a move to return the bat to the Rangers dugout, but an usher waved him back to his seat and the family had an unusual souvenir.

"I had missed a foul ball before that and I thought if that bat got closer to me, I really wanted to keep it as a souvenir," said Covey, a Jonesboro pharmacist who estimated that the bat traveled about 115 feet. "It was flying through the air and it seemed like it was in slow motion. I remember thinking, It seems like it's taking five minutes to get here and I still don't have a plan for when it gets down here.'

"About the moment I thought that, that's when I snapped into real time and it dropped out of the air. I saw it hit the seat, and it popped up and I grabbed it." The bat accidentally hurled by Saltalamacchia, a switch hitter who was batting from the left side, is a 34-inch, 33-ounce Louisville Slugger made in May. The barrel bears a green mark on the spot where it hit the seats.

Nicole Covey, the principal at Brookland Elementary School, has a bruise on her left leg where the bat hit her.

"Have you ever seen someone throw a bat in the stands like that? I've never seen it," she said. "I would have never dreamed in a million years that we would have gotten hit with a bat. A ball, I was prepared for. I wouldn't have liked it, but I was prepared to be hit by a ball. I was not prepared to be hit by a bat."

At another point in the game, Nicole Covey wouldn't have been in the seats to be hit by the bat. She spent part of the night walking around with Mason, the younger of the Coveys' two sons, going back and forth to the misting fans that offered some relief on a hot evening.

Michael Covey, meanwhile, had a chance to grab a foul ball hit by Houston's Carlos Lee. He didn't get the ball, but he did get a small bruise on his right hand. "I've always taken my glove to every game," he said. "This is the first time I didn't and we had two items come to us. It wouldn't have helped with the bat, but I would have caught the foul ball."

When Saltalamacchia's bat came her way, Nicole Covey was watching the game from Mason's seat. "I've watched on the Internet now several times and it's very fast, but when it was happening, it felt like it took forever," she said. "I kept thinking, We're 100 feet away, the bat is not going to make it here. There's no way.' Who's going to throw a bat more than 100 feet? I watched it, but I didn't move or anything.

"Now, everyone else did move because I guess they were more prepared than I was. I didn't move until I noticed that it was actually going to make it to us."

Friends watching the Fox Sports Southwest telecast sent Nicole and her older son Kinman text messages during the game. Others saw the play later on the video screens at Forest Home Church of the Nazarene as the surprised Coveys watched from their seats in the choir.

"I remember leaning over to Michael (at the game) and saying, Well, our one saving grace is there's probably not a lot of people in Jonesboro who watch the Rangers,"' Nicole Covey said with a laugh. "I was thinking that maybe not a lot of people saw it on TV, but clearly they did and they all saw it at church."

The Rangers won the game 5-4 in 10 innings. When it was over, the Coveys saw Saltalamacchia, who hit a home run in the third inning, being interviewed on the field. Kinman Covey approached one of the ushers with a request.

"Kinman just asked the usher, 'Would you see if Mr. Saltalamacchia would sign the bat he hit my mom with?"' Nicole said. "The usher just kind of giggled and looked at me, and I was like, It really hit me.' I had ice and I showed him my leg.

"He kind of felt bad and he walked up to the dugout, waited until (Saltalamacchia) was done, and when he was walking into the dugout he asked Saltalamacchia if he would sign the bat that he threw up into the stands and actually hit a lady. He said yes, and someone threw him a pen and he signed it."

Kinman Covey also received a game ball when the bat was returned with Saltalamacchia's autograph on it. The family was offered money by other fans for the bat, but Nicole Covey said she wasn't giving it up for any amount. She figures she earned it the hard way.

"It's a good conversation piece," Michael Covey said.

For more information see Sunday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.