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I saw some of the replay on SportsCenter. I noticed on a replay that it looked like the batter, as he was running to first slowed down and tried to signal a "time-out", like he was in a football or basketball game.

It looked like he didn't want to run to first and he kind of kept stopping and starting.

I was wondering when the umpire called time. It looked to me like he stopped the play, but after quite a few seconds. I think he should have immediately stopped play and called for help. (well, duh, I have the benefit of replays, etc. Maybe the umpire didn't realize what had happened.) And the batter running towards first was wondering the same thing.

`The fortunate thing is he's doing OK,'' Dodgers manager Jim Tracy said before Monday night's game in San Francisco. ``He's out of harm's way. I never want to go through seeing that again. It's the scariest thing I've ever seen.''

Aside from a small prayer that Ishii would recover, about the first thought I had when hearing about the incident (I saw replays enough later in the evening; I missed the game, alas) was Herb Score in 1957 - the Cleveland Indians pitcher, often described as "Sandy Koufax before Koufax was Sandy Koufax," was hit in the face by a liner off Yankee infielder Gil McDougald's bat, smashing his eye socket. (McDougald, who was horrified immediately by what happened to Score, took an unconscionable amount of abuse over the incident, the abusers forgetting conveniently that he got into and stayed in contact with Score's family while the pitcher was in the hospital and beyond; Score himself never blamed McDougald, but that didn't stop the idiot brigades from hounding McDougald so that within three seasons he lost his taste for playing baseball. In a sad irony, the last I heard was McDougald nearly losing his own eyesight as he aged.) Score sat out the rest of the season.

The myth says his eyesight was damaged enough that it crippled his pitching career. But Score himself says otherwise - like many a pitcher subconsciously thinking he needs a mechanical adjustment, Score unwittingly altered his pitching mechanics the following season and tore an elbow tendon, rushed himself back, and that - not the eye injury - wrecked his pitching career. Not that he feels robbed. To this day, Score believes himself the most blessed of men (he made one final comeback with the White Sox, under his old Indian manager Al Lopez, which failed). After he retired, he joined the Indians' broadcasting team and remains there to this day, so far as I know, almost more beloved on the air than he was in his brief moment in that sweet spot in time on the mound. His two full seasons did suggest a great, maybe even a Hall of Fame career ahead of him.

Last I heard, Kaz Ishii underwent surgery to remove chips from his nasal area, and his wife flew in from their native Japan to be with him. Prayer kit working for him.