A 9-year-old batboy from Kansas died from his injuries after being accidentally struck by a warm-up swing at a National Baseball Congress World Series game on Saturday, CNN reported Monday morning.
"With the permission of the family, and with much sorrow and a very broken heart, I regretfully inform everyone that Kaiser Carlile passed away earlier this evening," the team statement read.
The Liberal Bee Jays is a summer league baseball team for college players, and Carlile was the team's only batboy.
"He was a part of the team," team president Nathan McCaffrey said in a statement. "Please continue to pray and keep Kaiser and his family in your thoughts. Information will be appropriately released as it's made available. Please also keep the player, his family, and the rest of the team in your thoughts and prayers as everyone struggles to process and cope with this tragedy."
Apparently, one of the team's batters accidentally made contact with Carlile's helmet as he was retrieving a bat. Carlile then took three or four steps before he fell as the team rushed to him.
"Just to see him fall, that's what crushes you," McCaffrey via CNN, before adding the team wanted to go to the hospital, but the family asked that they not do so.
“I’m just at a loss of words,” Liberal manager Adam Anderson said, via the Wichita Eagle, before Monday morning's news broke. “This was just so unfortunate and tragic and it was an accident. It was a very emotional game for our guys and it was incredible how they were able to claw through to just stay in the game mentally. Now all we can do is hope and pray that everything works out OK.”