Rangers pitcher Neal Cotts nearly beheaded by broken bat (GIF)

Rangers pitcher Neal Cotts is lucky to still have a head attached to his shoulders after nearly being cut down by this flying hunk of broken bat.

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Cotts’ pitch to the Royals’ Alcides Escobar causes Escobar’s bat to become a pinwheeling death-splinter headed straight for Cotts’ cranium.

The hunk of bat flies all the way out to Elvis Andrus who lightens up the mood by pretending the sheared-off bat shard is a toothpick before tossing it out of play.

We can joke now, but Neal Cotts almost wasn’t joking. He almost became the guy from the Legend of Sleepy Hollow on that one. He almost found out what Marie-Antoinette felt like when the Jacobins took her head on the guillotine.

Even if the shattered bat-slice hadn’t clean taken off Cotts’ head, it might have still stabbed him through the heart, or slashed open a vital artery causing him to die of massive blood loss.

It could have taken off an arm or at least a couple of fingers. Or sliced open Cotts’ face, disfiguring him permanently. Are we getting the picture here? Flying hunks of broken bat are scary.

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