Jorge Soler's foul ball destroys photographer's camera lens

“Lo siento.”

That’s the message Miami Marlins player Jorge Soler wrote on the baseball that smashed Jim Rassol’s camera lens — at 104 mph, while Rassol was holding it.

It happened June 24 while Rassol was covering the Florida Marlins-Pittsburgh Pirates game in Miami for USA TODAY Sports. And (pardon the pun) it was caught on camera. As of July 26, the video by Bally Sports Florida had more than 180,000 views on Twitter.

Rassol, a veteran visuals journalist for the Sun-Sentinel and freelance photographer for USA TODAY, Palm Beach Post and AP, was covering the Miami Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates game June 24 when Soler hit a line-drive foul ball straight to the "photographers' pit" while Rassol was holding his camera. It happened so fast that Rassol thought another camera in the pit had been hit. The video on Twitter shows the impact of the ball and glass flying.

"All of a sudden I heard it, and then I saw a chiclet of a white flash for a millisecond. I flinched," Rassol said, adding he "pulled my eye off the back of the camera, and then flinched a little bit to the right. And then the ball hit." His arm and camera moved back, a motion similar to the recoil of a gun. "It was really loud."

Stunned, Rassol examined his $13,000 lens, noticed a video camera was focused on him, grabbed the ball and lightly tossed it in the air and caught it, to let fans watching that while his camera was shattered, he was not.

"The No. 1 rule is, 'don't become the story,'" Rassol said, laughing. "It wasn't really my choice."

Soler, a 6-foot-4, 235-pound native of Cuba known for his power hitting, was the World Series Most Valuable Player for the Atlanta Braves in 2021. He's in his second year with the Marlins.

In the first inning of the Marlins-Pirates game, Soler ripped the very first pitch he saw from Pittsburgh Pirates right-handed pitcher Osvaldo Bido. Soler was the second hitter in the game, hitting with one out.

Rassol said he was focused tight on Soler with the big lens, just trying to get a follow-through of a hit.

After 18 years with the Sun-Sentinel, Rassol voluntarily left the newspaper by taking a buyout. He started freelancing in 2019 for AP, USA TODAY Sports Images/Imagn, the Palm Beach Post, Miami Herald, NY Post, Newsday, Memorial Health South, Paramount Productions and other organizations. The 55-year-old lives in Boynton Beach.

As a freelancer, there is no familiar camaraderie in a newsroom with fellow journalists, no editors to check in with in a daily meeting, no colleagues to bounce ideas off of, Rassol explained. With the newspaper industry changes and #WorkFromHome since the coronavirus pandemic, it's a feeling journalists and freelance journalists can relate to.

But he admits there's a little bit of that newsroom energy when covering a sporting event in a pit with several other photographers and videographers.

On that day, the pit was full, with photojournalists shoulder to shoulder with about 2 1/2 feet to move so they don't hit each other in their shooting positions. When shooting baseball, Rassol explained, photographers have to pivot their cameras really fast to get the play. The crack of a ball can be as quick as lightning.

"(Sony) 400 2.8 got taken out by a line drive, glass everywhere. Fortunately, I'm OK," Rassol said in a Facebook post with photos of his busted equipment.

Soler's line-drive foul ball was pulled from the right-handed batter's box 95 feet away to the pit outside the third-base line. Though the lens was shattered, Rassol realized his camera body was working. He was able to borrow a lens from a fellow photographer to finish shooting the rest of the game. He made his deadline to USA TODAY.

Paul Severino and Gaby Sanchez, the two announcers on the Bally Sports Florida video (see the tweets), reacted to the shot. Here's a recap of their banter:

In reality, the game had just begun and Rassol kept working, and though his demeanor looked shaken but grateful on camera, inside, he was a ball of emotions. His biggest regret was that the camera equipment was not insured: "I have to own that," he admitted. "I should have been insured, but I wasn't. And that's the price you pay.

"It's one of those things. You don't think you need insurance until you do. ... Before you know it, a ball goes through your lens."

Rassol left the dugout after the inning was over, passed the Marlins' dugout and Sandy Alcantara, a Cy Young Award winner, called to him: "Hey, man, let me look at that," Rassol said of the exchange. He described Alcantara's reaction, an audible wince after he told him the lens cost "13 grand." Alcantara's response, according to Rassol? A long-drawled "Damn."

Rassol, who was psyched to be speaking to the Cy Young Award winner, told Alcantara: "It's cheaper than getting hit in the head and heading to the hospital."

That shot, that 104-mph line-drive foul ball hit by Marlins player Jorge Soler that struck Rassol's camera lens as he was holding the camera, was unbelievable, a one-in-a-million chance, Rassol described.

"You probably got a better shot of getting in an accident on the way to the stadium than you do getting hit by a baseball like that," he said. "It reminded me of the Death Star shot in 'Star Wars' when Luke Skywalker hit the magic shot that blew up the Death Star. It had to be perfect, and it was. It blew up my lens. Luckily, it wasn't my head, and that's the big takeaway from this. It's a lens, it can be replaced."

Word got around that Rassol's equipment was not insured, and his fellow visuals journalists rallied to help one of their own.

A GoFundMe was set up Sunday, July 2, courtesy of Sun-Sentinel photographer Joe Cavaretta, Rassol's friend and former colleague, and Al Diaz, a veteran Miami Herald photojournalist. The support was instant. Rassol assumed the crowdsourcing campaign would raise $700. By July Fourth, more than 200 people contributed $7,200.

"To see that outpouring from the community was just overwhelming. It was like wow," Rassol said.

Had the campaign continued, it would likely have covered Rassol’s expenses for his camera.

But then Sony stepped in.

Rassol said Sony representatives contacted him after the company learned what had happened to his lens. The target of the fundraiser was $13,000 to replace it. The GoFundMe raised about $7,200 by Tuesday. "Sony notified me that day they would do the repair for the amount in the (GoFundMe) of $7,200. Sony discounted $1,500 from the repair cost, this let me send out the camera body that was involved (a $330 repair) and get insurance," Rassol said. "Any leftover funds will be donated to the Alan Diaz Memorial Scholarship at Miami Dade College."

"It's one thing to get run over by a football player or have a basketball player fall on you," Rassol said of foibles that befall a visuals journalist. "But a baseball, man, that thing can ... do a lot more damage."

After the line drive, Rassol got hit by a baseball — again.

"I was hit in the back at the next game I was assigned to on July 3 between the Miami Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals," he said. "The ball bounced a few times (the one that hit my lens did not hit the ground, it was a line-drive right to my lens), hit the Miami Herald photographer next to me hard on the wrist, then the ball ricocheted off him and hit me in the back."

The second hit motivated Rassol to buy a skate helmet from a sporting goods store. It caused a few jokes from his peers about his luck, too.

"I've been out here since the stadium opened and doing baseball for 20-something odd years, and I've never had close calls like this," he said, adding the helmet gives him piece of mind.

Enclosed in a glass case, courtesy of the Miami Marlins, the infamous baseball features the initials of Jorge Soler and the player's personalized message to Rassol: "Lo siento."

But, really, there's nothing to be sorry about, for the experience that thrust veteran newspaper photographer Jim Rassol into the proverbial spotlight taught him a valuable lesson — "I'm just grateful that this is a story and not an incident where I'm messed up for the rest of my life."

To view Rassol's photography, visit rassolphoto.com.

Sangalang is a lead digital producer for USA TODAY Network-Florida. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram at @byjensangalang. Support local journalism. Consider subscribing to a Florida newspaper.