The pitch struck umpire out

Amid all the light and sound that is a major league baseball game, with thousands of fans buzzing behind him, Kerwin Danley distinctly heard two words.

"Look out!"

There was a fastball headed his way, toward his head, at 96 mph. In a split second, Dodgers catcher Russell Martin realized he could not catch the ball and hollered those two words to the umpire behind him: Look out!

"That was the last thing I remember," Danley said Friday. "I heard it plainly. The next thing I knew, I was out."

Danley was knocked down -- and briefly out -- when that fastball hit his jaw last Saturday at Dodger Stadium. The game was delayed for 18 minutes while the Dodgers' training staff treated Danley and an ambulance drove onto the field to rush him to a hospital.

After a precautionary CT scan, he was released within a few hours. He stayed at his mother's home in Culver City, then returned Wednesday to his home in Chandler, Ariz.

"I've still got some headaches," he told The Times, "and I'm a little disoriented. My body feels good. I just can't get rid of these headaches."

In the fourth inning of a game between the Dodgers and Colorado Rockies, Martin flashed the sign for a curveball to Dodgers pitcher Brad Penny, but Penny had glanced away and missed the sign.

Penny threw a fastball. Martin, expecting a curve, could not react quickly enough in that split-second, except to yell back to Danley.

"I felt like somebody gave me a left hook," Danley said. "I could see it coming. I couldn't do anything about it."

Danley lost consciousness for a few moments, falling backward, a moment replayed all night long on sports shows across the country.

As a hush fell over the stadium and trainers rushed to his aid, Danley said he could hear Dodgers trainer Stan Conte asking him to open his eyes.

"I kind of remember, 'Where am I? Open my eyes? Why did he ask me that?' " Danley said.

The Dodgers players left the field and returned to the dugout, with the exceptions of Penny and Martin.

"I was just hoping that he was still breathing," Martin said after the game. "I told him 'I'm sorry' a couple of times, but I don't know if he heard me."

Said Danley: "I didn't hear him at all. But stuff like that happens all the time. Sometimes we dodge it. This was just one of those things.

"I don't blame him. I just happened to be in the way."