Oh, yeah! It surprised the hell out of me. I've been hit a few times, photographing our local mnor league team, the Indians, but never like that. I usually kept my concentration on the game better than that, but the mascot had been fucking with me (for a laugh) and the player I needed to photograph was trying to steal third, right in front of me. I could not miss that.
*can't breathe - exhale only - no inhale*
It was actually a cool job. I got thirty dollars an hour to photograph a game and an additional one hundred fifty for each shot they published. I had seven shots published one afternoon. Not a bad day of work for a shutterbug.