The brave 2-year-old girl struck in the face by a 105-mph line drive at Yankee Stadium in September can remember the horrific moment — she even uses ice to soothe her doll’s “injured” head.
“She is definitely aware that she was injured by a baseball . . . occasionally she will say something about it that will make you cringe,” the girl’s father, Geoffrey Jacobson, told The Post in an exclusive interview.
He agreed to talk on the condition that her name and other personal information be withheld.
“We had dinner guests over a couple of weeks ago and my daughter walked into the room with an ice pack on her doll’s head and said the doll got hit in the head by a baseball.
“One of our guests, trying to relieve the awkward silence, said, ‘Well, I guess that didn’t have any effect on her.’ And pretty much that sums it up, because clearly, it’s had some traumatic impact.”
Jacobson’s 4-year-old son also remembers. Sometimes, while watching a game on TV, the boy will ask “if we remember the time [his sister] got hit with a baseball,” the dad said.
“I do hope my son and daughter don’t remember all of this a few years from now,” Jacobson said. “I try to convince myself that you don’t remember much from when you are two.”
But for the 40-year-old New Jersey lawyer and his wife, they “will carry this experience the rest of our lives.”
Jacobson added, “But it is not lost on us how fortunate we are and how much worse this could have been. We could have lost our baby girl. Maybe there are angels in the outfield.”
On Sept. 20, the little girl was hit with a screaming foul ball off the bat of Yankee third baseman Todd Frazier during an afternoon game against the Minnesota Twins.
“The morning of the game, my father called and invited my son and I to the game. I couldn’t go because of work, so my parents took my son and daughter,” Jacobson recalled in e-mailed responses.
Of his daughter’s privacy, he said, “We made a family decision to protect her . . . We’ve tried to balance that with some social obligation to speak up concerning safety of fans,” he said.
The kids were sitting behind the third-base dugout, about six rows up, with Jacobson’s parents.
“When it happened, my daughter was sitting on my father’s lap. It happened in a split second. My father said he started to react but did not have time. I believe he said he felt it graze past his fingertip.”
The ball hit the middle of her forehead and the bridge of her nose, leaving “blood everywhere. I can’t even think of the sound it must have made. I think the reactions of the players on the field say it all, many driven to tears,” the dad said.
“There was a doctor attending the game in their section that came to my daughter’s assistance immediately. According to my son, a woman either covered his eyes or turned his head away as my parents and the doctor tended to my daughter. I couldn’t put into words how thankful and appreciative I am of those two people for their responses and assistance.
“The EMTs took my daughter to [NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center]. At that point, my wife and I were about an hour, with afternoon traffic, from the hospital. My parents told us that my daughter was OK and downplayed it so we would not drive frantically and unsafely. We really had no idea what truly had occurred other than she had been hit with a baseball.
“About five minutes from the hospital I went on espn.com on my phone and the top headline was about my daughter. I played the video to see what happened. As one of the announcers said, ‘This was too graphic or too gruesome to show.’ I told my wife that this is really serious.
“Upon arriving at the hospital, there were news trucks and camera crews all over near the entrance. My daughter was in the ER and had skull fractures and bleeding on the brain.
“She was in a neck brace and both eyes were severely swollen shut and she had the stitching of the baseball cut into her forehead. My daughter was awake and in obvious pain.
“I remember trying to assure her everything will be alright and holding her hand while they were prying open her eyelids to look at her eyes. A team of doctors began to explain everything they could, while they worked on her. We did our best to remain calm. If for nothing else than for our daughter and son’s benefit. Eventually that day, we made it up to the ICU. She had a feeding tube and was hooked up to machines monitoring her for seizures. It was one test or scan after the next. The six days in the ICU were the longest days of our lives. But I thank god every day for all those nurses and doctors who worked around the clock for our daughter. I owe them everything.”
Today, Jacobson’s daughter wears an eye patch five hours a day on her good eye to strengthen the injured one.
‘She was in a neck brace and both eyes were severely swollen shut and she had the stitching of the baseball cut into her forehead’
“Every morning is a struggle and a negotiation to get it on and get her to keep it on,” the dad said.
“She’s a strong-willed 2-year-old who doesn’t really understand the benefits. Sometimes reason will work, others it goes on while she’s kicking and screaming, sometimes she even wins a round. It’s the new normal for our morning routine.”
Jacobson said his daughter’s progress has been “slow,” but “being 2 years old in some ways played into her favor as her body is a new cell-making factory.
“When she is older and grows into her body, she may require surgery on her nose and orbital bones. Our main concern has been monitoring her eye for vision loss . . . We won’t know the exact extent of the damage to the optic nerve until she is older.”
Jacobson said his daughter is looking at “periodic appointments with a neurologist for years to come to monitor her development and risk for seizures. The hope is there is no long-term issues that arise from such head trauma. I try to be cautiously optimistic.”
As for the emotional scars, Jacobson said he and his wife tell their daughter only that “she got hurt and we are trying to make her better.
“Whenever she gets upset about any of it, all we try to do is put her mind at ease and comfort her. Like any parent there is no worse thing in the world than to see your daughter suffer in any way,” the dad said.
Jacobson said his family has received “letters of support from around the country,” and “strangers sent my daughter teddy bears and children’s books to the hospital.”
He noted that “so many people from our past reached out to us,” and “of course, all our friends, family and colleagues were so generous and supportive. Every call, every letter, every prayer mattered to us.”
Todd Frazier, now with the Mets, “was pretty shaken up about the whole thing and I wanted him to understand it wasn’t his fault,” Jacobson said.
Frazier called “every day” while Jacobson’s daughter was in the hospital and “I wanted to ease his mind and he wanted to offer his support,” the dad recalled.
“Since then we have spoken from time to time. He didn’t have to do that . . . The Mets are lucky to have him and our family will always be fans of Todd Frazier.”
The dad said the Yankees organization has been “supportive and concerned, at least as much as their lawyers most likely have allowed” and he’s spoken a few times with Lonn Trost, the the Bombers’ chief operating officer.
“I do think they genuinely care about the well-being of my daughter and they have covered her medical bills after insurance coverage to date,” Jacobson said.
He said his family has never asked, “Why us?” because “our daughter wasn’t the only child in a hospital that day.” He has not thought about litigation, because “my focus has been on my daughter’s well-being.”
“Thankfully, they extended the [crowd-protective] netting in Yankee Stadium,” he noted.
Jacobson said he received letters and e-mails from other people injured at baseball games and it was “horrifying to realize this group has far too many members.”
In February, MLB announced that all 30 teams would have protective netting extended to at least the far ends of both dugouts. Jacobson thinks the league can do more.
“I think it remains to be seen whether the nets are high enough or long enough, but I am hopeful that if they prove to be insufficient the Yankees and other teams with take the necessary steps to make them as safe as possible,” he said.
“The Yankees and MLB can do more by encouraging minor league teams, independent league teams, colleges, etc. to follow their lead and extend netting,” he continued. “This issue extends far beyond MLB, but MLB has the clout and the forum to invoke the needed change. This issue should never have fallen on the shoulders of people like [injured fan] Andy Zlotnick, my daughter or others injured at the ballpark.
“MLB can turn a negative story into a positive one by becoming true champions for change,” he said. “If I can assist MLB in doing that, I am here with open arms.”
But right now, under current conditions, “I don’t know if I ever would bring my daughter and son” to another game.
“Baseball is a beautiful sport and there is something very special about taking your kid to a ballpark,” he said. “But the price of admission shouldn’t be their well-being,” he said.
“Who knows, maybe one day my daughter will even have an opportunity to throw out the first pitch.”