MLB notebook: Ball hit by Span accidentally hits his mother

TAMPA, Fla. — Denard Span's mother settled into her box seat, surrounded by 20 family members and friends, to watch her son lead off for the Minnesota Twins.

Uh-oh. Look out!

In a shocking split-second, Span hit a hard foul ball that struck his mom in the upper chest Wednesday. She was treated by paramedics and back in the stands minutes later.

"Tell everyone that I'm all right," Wanda Wilson told The Associated Press hours later by telephone. "Everyone was so worried; he was so worried. But I'm all right."

"We had just gotten there. It happened so fast; you couldn't do anything," she said. "I was kind of in awe. But God is good; I'm OK."

Wilson was wearing a Span jersey and sitting a few rows off the field, near the Twins' third-base dugout. In the first inning against the New York Yankees, Span took a late swing on the sixth pitch of the game and sent a line drive that hit his mother near the shoulder.

"As the ball was in the air, I realized that it was going after my mom," Span said after arriving back at Twins' headquarters in Fort Myers. "When I saw her go down, I just couldn't do nothing but go after her."

Span ran into the packed stands and stayed with his mother while she got treatment. Shaken, she'd started to tear up.

"That's what hurt me the most," Span said, "when she started crying."

The split-squad game was delayed for a few minutes as she walked to the first aid station. Span returned to the plate and struck out looking on the next pitch from Phil Hughes.

The Twins originally said Span would leave the game, but his mother was sitting in a different seat by the bottom of the first inning and he went to play center field.

"What the odds of that happening?" Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson said. "I've never seen it before. It's crazy. I'm standing there right next to it and I heard it and it's just, 'Oh no!, that didn't sound good.' She's on the ground and I'm saying, 'Please don't be the head or something' because it sounded so ugly."

Span flied out in the second inning. After the top of the third, Span said Yankees star Derek Jeter stopped him on the field and told him that it was OK to leave the game to check on his mother. Span left in the bottom of the third, telling a team official he wasn't mentally into the game.