By Jorge L. Ortiz
USA TODAY
Aaron Hill initially didn’t fret much about the collision that knocked him out of a game in Oakland a year ago Friday.
The Toronto Blue Jays second baseman had taken an accidental elbow to the temple from then-Blue Jays shortstop David Eckstein when they crashed in pursuit of a popup, and Hill figured his headache would go away and he’d be back in the lineup the next day.
The doctor who checked out Hill said his eyesight and reactions were fine, so he joined the team for a flight to Anaheim, Calif. Later that evening, he went to dinner with his wife, mother-in-law and agent.
“Halfway through, they said I stopped talking for about 30 seconds,” Hill recalls. “I turned pale, white as a ghost as she (his wife, Elizabeth) put it. I felt like I was going to pass out. I didn’t want to move. A weird feeling just came over me, and everything was kind of in slow motion. That was the start of the fun year we had last year.”
Hill, 27, chuckles when uttering that last sentence, his ordeal now a memory. He’s enjoying the best season of his career, leading the majors in hits (72) and posting a .348 average, with 11 homers and 35 RBI going into Tuesday.
All those figures are tops among the Blue Jays, who have remained in the thick of the AL East race despite a seven-game losing streak.
Read the full article on USAToday.com.