36 Years Ago Today: Red Sox Player Jim Rice Saves Kid Struck By Foul Ball

From writer Chuck McGill at the Society For American Baseball Research:

Fenway Park was in its 71st season on August 7, 1982 when the Red Sox took on the White Sox on a very pleasant summer afternoon.

In the second row of seats just to the home plate side of the Red Sox dugout, Tom Keane and his sons Jonathan, 4, and Matthew, 2, were taking in the game. Keane had gotten the tickets through a friend who knew Red Sox Executive Vice President Haywood Sullivan. Keane’s son Jonathan was delighting in watching Stapleton, his favorite player.

Stapleton, a right-handed hitter, stepped into the batter’s box to face Richard Dotson, a right-handed pitcher. Stapleton swung late at one of the pitches, sending it screaming into the stands near the Red Sox dugout.

Tom Keane heard a loud crack, thinking the ball had hit the side of the dugout. When he looked at his son Jonathan, he saw blood streaming from his head, the ball having struck him squarely over his left eye, fracturing his skull.

Hearing the reaction of the crowd, center fielder Rick Miller, waiting at the edge of the dugout for his turn at bat, jumped out to see what had happened. Upon seeing the injured boy, he immediately called for Red Sox trainer Charlie Moss.

As Moss started to head out of the dugout, Jim Rice quickly raced past him and jumped into the stands. Rice picked up the boy and headed to the Red Sox clubhouse, where team physician Arthur Pappas had just arrived from his box seat. Pappas quickly evaluated the child’s injury and placed him into the ambulance that is on stand-by at all Red Sox home games.

Within a few minutes, Jonathan was on the operating table at Children’s Hospital of Boston, where surgery to relieve pressure on his brain was performed. After less than a week, he was released from the hospital. Follow-up tests two years later showed that everything was normal.

In an interview after the incident Rice said,

“I was just being a parent, being a father. If that was my child I’d want somebody to react the same way I did.”

A career left-fielder for the Red Sox, Rice had 351 home runs, 2 World Series appearances & was the American League’s MVP in 1978. He was inducted in to the Hall of Fame in 2009… Obviously a man who stepped up to the plate when it was needed most.

To see the actual photo (warning, it’s graphic) of Jim Rice running from the stands with Keane, click here.