A YES Network cameraman has been hospitalized after being hit in the head by an errant pitch during the New York Yankees’ game against the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday night.
Pete Stendel was working the camera on the right side of the Yankees dugout in New York on Wednesday when Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson tried to convert a double play in the fifth inning. Henderson, after making the play at second base, knocked down first. The ball hit Henderson directly in the head and sent him falling backwards into the pit.
The game was delayed for almost 20 minutes while medical staff attended to Stendel, who was then stretched off the pitch and taken to a local hospital. Stendel held up a few fingers to wave to the Yankee Stadium crowd as he left the field, and the YES Network said after the game he was conscious and was undergoing testing.
“I’m really praying for him. It was good to see him obviously consistent and obviously raising his hand,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said via ESPN. “But I saw it pretty well straight away, and it was very scary. I didn’t see how it fell, but I knew what might have been possible to fall back, in addition to the impact of the speed of the ball hitting him… Obviously a tough scene there, and I just hope he’s okay.
The Orioles scored four runs in the sixth inning thanks in large part to a Jordan Westburg triple, then added two runs on a Ryan O’Hearn homer in the ninth for a 6-3 victory. It ended a two-game losing streak for Baltimore and marked its second victory in its last eight games.
The fourth and final game of the series is scheduled for Thursday night.