Was there ever a major league player whose career was never the same after getting beaned? I’m talking about an all-star caliber player, who got drilled in the head in one at bat, then was never the same afterwards and was soon out of baseball?
I have a vague memory of some player this happened to - I think they brought it up after Wagner got hit by a line drive a couple years ago - but it was before my time and I can’t seem to put this together into a search engine that yields any results…
Well, Ray Chapman, shortstop for the Cleveland Indians, died after being beaned by Yankee pitcher Carl Mays in 1920.
Tony Conigliaro. Herb Score.
Kirby Puckett had to retire due to vision problems suffered after a beaning and he was all star caliber.
A couple of other famous instances were:
Tony Conigliaro, who hit 24 Homers as a 19-year-old rookie with the Red Sox in 1964, and became youngest in history to lead the AL in HRs (32) in 1965. He was hit in the face with a fastball in 1967 and was never the same, although he did come back to hit 36 HRs in 1970.
Herb Score, a pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, went 16-10 in 1955, and 20-9 in 1956, then only 19-37 in six more years with the Indians and White Sox after being beaned.
A recent example was Dickie Thon. Thon was a young shortstop for the Astros who had a good season in 1982 and then a tremendous season in 1983, hitting and fielding brilliantly, and at the time looked like a Cal Ripken type. Early in 1984 he was beaned by Mike Torrez, and was out of baseball for a year and a half. He came back but always had problems with his vision, and never played particualrly well again.
Slight nit, wasn’t Herb Score hit in the eye by a line drive while he was pitching?
But definitely Conigliaro and Ray Chapman.
Sorry, Score wasn’t beaned but was hit in the eye by a line drive off the bat of Yankee Gil MacDougal while Score was pitching.
Whoops, kunilou beat me to the correction.
Kirby Puckett retired due to glaucoma, not the effects of an injury.