Bryce Florie saw A’s pitcher Chris Bassitt crumple to the ground, clutching the side of his head as trainers rushed to his aid. A line drive off the bat of Chicago’s Brian Goodwin had struck Bassitt in the face. Fans at the ballpark in Chicago and those watching on TV at home watched in horror as he writhed in the dirt.
Florie knows firsthand what Bassitt felt. And even though more than 20 years have passed, it’s a feeling one doesn’t forget.
“It’s been a long time since mine,” Florie said Wednesday by phone. “But that initial sound of the bat. Being hit and the bang-bang to the face, that sound, that gets me every time. It doesn’t matter what the final result is because that brings back the flood of memories.”
In a 2000 game, while pitching for the Boston Red Sox, Florie was struck by a line drive off the bat of New York Yankees’ Ryan Thompson. Florie suffered injuries that included multiple broken bones and eye damage.
The bones healed, but the impact on his vision continues to this day. Now 51, Florie coaches high school baseball in his hometown of Charleston, S.C.
He made it back to the mound a year after the accident, pitching seven games for the Red Sox in 2001. Released at mid-season, he had a number of minor-league stints, including one with the A’s in 2002, but he never made it back to the majors.
Because Bassitt apparently sustained no injuries to his eyes or orbital bone, Florie foresees a better outcome for the A’s ace.
“As long as the vision is there, I think he will be fine,” Florie said.
Here’s more from our conversation:
You are one of few people that knows what it feels like. How do you put the fear into words?
Like most of these guys, you don’t think about it until it’s too late. You know it can happen and there’s always the risk.You always get hit multiple times before you get hit by that. Then you get to that level and they’re going to hit the ball. So you know theres a chance, whether it’s the first guy or ninth guy or pinch hitter, they’re going to hit the ball hard. You know that’s part of it, you just hope you aren’t part of the story that it actually got you.
How did it change your mental state when it came to pitching again? How did you mentally get back to the mound?
The difference between my experience and others’ is I got hit in the eye. Just straight in the eyeball. If you look at pictures of me, you can see where it hit. The whole nose, orbital, top bottom, all of that. At the hospital, they did a test and said, ‘OK, you aren’t blind. We’ll see how this turns out.’ I wasn’t sure my vision was going to come back, and I couldn’t see out of the middle of my eye for months. There was no, ‘Hey, I’ll be fine.’ It was, if this blood dries behind my visual field, I may be able to come back.
I knew going in I might not be able to see enough to do anything. These guys getting hit in the head, side of the head, nose, there is fear. But at the same time, it’s different mindsets. Some react worse than others in terms of being scared, but most jump back out there because this is my job and this is what I do. Mine was different because I couldn’t see well and my vision was changing all the way until I got back and it’s changing until this day.
Day games were better than night games for me, glares, and shadows because you have two eyes seeing differently. My depth perception was different, and I had to deal with that.
Did anything change when you came back?
I pitched away from contact when I was coming up through the system anyway. I went to spring training next year, which I probably shouldn’t have. When I started rehabbing, I’m in extended spring training games and A-ball games. I’m still pitching to the very far corner of the plate and inside, so I wasn’t letting them hit the ball back up the middle. At some point I had to say, ‘You’re doing it or you aren’t.’
One of the first times I went back out, I got hit in the wrist with a line drive. As a sinkerball guy throwing 93 mph, they were smacking balls up the middle all the time. But I wasn’t oblivious to the thought it couldn’t happen again.
Do you remember in the aftermath of the injury when you started to get the drive back to get back in the game?
I was at the hospital asking, ‘Did we get the guy out?’ When I got home, I had surgeries and an eye patch on. But I was at the gym right away. It never left me, there was no doubt I was going to try to make it. I never thought for one second I wasn’t going to at least try. That was next-day stuff.
Bassitt has said in a tweet that he wants to come back, and his coaches say they expect him to try to return. Do you think that’s a possibility?
Yeah. He broke some bones. They won’t let him out until they’re healed, but he can be at the field and around the game. And that will help. He might flinch a little bit, there’s no uncertainty it won’t happen. I told myself I would be OK, but my brain was telling me otherwise sometimes.
Should there be movement toward protecting pitchers more on the mound since the outcomes are so dire?
There could be something put in the hat for protection, but I’ve said numerous times I don’t think guys will do it. I don’t think I would have done it. But I feel like if there is movement at the younger levels to get something in the hat for protection that doesn’t impact the weight of the hat and it becomes part of the uniform, it’s something that could make it in the major and minor leagues that could save some guys. I don’t know what you could do, the game is the way it is. Guys throw and hit it hard.
I bought some things to put into your hat after my playing days. It just makes it heavier, but there are options out there. With everything we can put together these days, there has to be something thin enough and strong enough to put inside of a hat that makes sense.
There’s not much time. I don’t know how much he saw that ball until he felt it. That was my initial thought, that he didn’t see it. There’s not much you can do other than putting something in the hat. When I came back I used Oakley glasses for protection, but that was just for peace of mind. It’s a mental game, guys can say it won’t happen to me. And, really, there aren’t many guys that get smoked. But unfortunately, here we are again.
