LSU Fan Keeps Head In Game, Takes HR Off Dome But Largely Unfazed: 'It Didn't Feel Good'

BATON ROUGE, La. - LSU slugger Tommy White hit the biggest home run in college baseball last season. His two-run walk-off in the bottom of the 11th at the College World Series gave LSU a 2-0 win over No. 1 Wake Forest and sent the Tigers into the national championship against Florida that they won.

But White will likely always remember the somewhat meaningless one he hit Tuesday night here at Alex Box Stadium - a three-run shot for a 9-0 lead in the eighth inning of a 9-0 win over Nicholls State.

The homer - his second of the night and 15th of the season after 24 last year - did something none of the previous 38 did. It bounced off the forehead of a fan in the left field bleachers and out of the stadium.

But it didn't knock the fan's lights out. Cory Morace, a 43-year-old electrician who lives in Baton Rouge, was fine immediately afterward. He even watched the replay on the video screen at the stadium and laughed about it. He was still fine later when paramedics examined him and cautioned him not to go to bed until the wee hours of Wednesday, which he did. And he was back at work Wednesday and feeling fine without taking any pain relievers.

LSU Fan Was ‘Woozy’ At First

"I was a little woozy at first," Morace told OutKick Wednesday in a phone interview from Baker High School, where he is doing electrical work on a remodeling job of the school. "I lost my hat, so that was the first thing I was worried about. But I'm doing well, doing a little work now. About as well as you could be after getting hit by a ball at 100 miles per hour."

The ball's exit velocity was actually clocked at 109 mph by LSU's baseball staff.

"It didn't feel good last night," said Morace, who was bleeding a little upon impact and still sports what he called a "scuff mark" just below his hairline on his forehead.

A former offensive lineman at Buckeye High School in DeVille near Alexandria (two hours northwest of Baton Rouge), Morace knows contact.

"But I never got hit that hard in football," he said. "I usually had protection with my helmet."

LSU slugger Tommy White found Cory Morace, who was hit in the head by White's home run Tuesday night, after the game and signed a baseball for him at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Getty Images)

His only regret is he didn't catch White's home run, because he was ready, in position and wearing a glove that Morace, a season ticket holder with his wife Stephanie since 2004, brings to every game.

"I had the glove. I was ready for my moment," he said. "But there must be a hole in that glove. I did have a moment, but not the one I've been dreaming about."

And he didn't even get the ball. It bounced over the bleachers and into a "stampede of 10,000 children as usual when they hit a home run here," Morace said.

"Some 8-year-old Little League kid's probably got it," Morace lamented. "Everybody always says if some 40-year-old guy catches a ball at a game, you're supposed to give it to a little kid. I've always thought, ‘No way I’m doing that.'"

Morace is one 40-year-old baseball fan who deserves getting a ball back from a kid. He did touch it first, after all. He had the assist.

LSU left fielder Josh Pearson did give Morace one of the team's warm-up baseballs.

"That was nice," Morace said.

LSU's Tommy White Should've Signed Fan's Forehead

Then just as he was driving off from an Alex Box parking lot, an LSU staff member came running up to his window with a baseball signed by White.

But he doesn't have THE baseball - you know the one that probably still has blood on it. Maybe White should've signed Morace's forehead. Now, that would be a keeper.

If the dad of that "8-year-old kid" finds out where his son got the baseball he brought home Tuesday night, perhaps he should have his son return it to the man who caught it … off his head.

In the meantime, Morace will settle for a guest appearance on the radio broadcast of LSU's next game. That will be Friday when the Tigers (26-16, 5-13 SEC) host Auburn (20-20, 2-16) in a third division clash (7:30 p.m., SEC Network+). But it may as well be another LSU national championship series opener to Morace.

Former LSU pitcher Doug Thompson, a 12-3 ace in 1997 who won the national title game over Alabama that year for LSU, is the LSU radio crew's color man and called Morace Wednesday to invite him to be an in-game guest. Who knows? He may get to meet LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson and former coach Skip Bertman, who won five national championships in the 1990s.

"I'll be in the booth Friday night," Morace said. "Just living the dream."

If Morace catches that home run, he probably doesn't make the broadcast. But he'd have the baseball.

But that's the way the ball bounces … off your head.

"And he's got a big one," Thompson said during the replay. "So he'll be all right."