Major League Baseball

Report: Boy hit by foul ball still in pain

Published Sep. 15, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

A 12-year-old Long Island boy is still struggling to recover, weeks after being struck in the face by a foul ball at a game between the New York Mets and Florida Marlins, myFOXny.com reported Thursday.

Eliezer Shalomoff was left bloodied and bruised after being hit by the Greg Dobbs line drive in the ninth inning of the Aug 29 game at Citi Field.

He spent five days in the intensive care unit at the hospital and has suffered internal bleeding, had two blood transfusions and had spinal fluid drained to relieve excessive headaches.

The young fan has not yet returned to school and could need further surgery, his mother Valerie said.

"I thought it was going to be a couple of days and then he would start getting back to normal again but things started getting worse," she said.

The Marlins' Dobbs visited Eliezer in the hospital and gave him a signed bat but it does not appear to be enough to get the youngster back to the ball park.

"Now every time I look at it [the bat] it's going to remind me that I got hit," he said.

Valerie Shalomoff, who was taking her children to the baseball for the first time on the day Eliezer got hit, is calling for the introduction of a child safety zone at the ball park.

"My big concern is not to see this happen again," she said.

The Mets issued a statement about the incident saying, "Our staff promptly attended to the boy after the accident occurred. We reached out to the family to express our concern."