BOSTON -- He had a patch over his eye, a case of the jitters and an uncertain future. Bryce Florie, struck in the face by a liner less than two weeks ago, returned to the Boston Red Sox clubhouse Thursday.

	Florie

"You try to work so hard to make something good," he said, "and this is something you can't make good. You just have to wait and hope for the best."

Florie said it could be a few months before he knows how sharp his eyesight will be. The problem now, he said, is blood that has collected in the eye and blocks his field of vision. He's waiting to find out how much drains out to get a better idea of whether he'll see well enough to pitch again.

"There's really no time frame," he said, but doctors have been more optimistic.

On Monday, Florie had surgery to repair bones broken Sept. 8 when he was hit below the right eye by a liner off the bat of the New York Yankees' Ryan Thompson.

On Thursday, the 30-year-old reliever awoke with plans to visit his teammates.

"It's good to see smiling faces," Florie said. "I wasn't sure when I got up I wanted to come and I got really nervous before I left. It's just sad because I know I might not be a part of this again."

Florie hasn't spoken with Thompson but said he read his comments and knows he tried to talk with Boston manager Jimy Williams.

"Whether I hear his voice or not, I know he cares," Florie said.

When Thompson's liner hit him, Florie fell on his stomach, kicked his legs, then rolled over and sat up with blood dripping from his wound.

He rode off the field on a cart with fractures to his eye socket and nose. His right eyeball was not ruptured, and his retina was damaged but not detached.

Team physician Dr. Bill Morgan said at the time, "Prognosis for reasonable vision is guarded." Florie was operated on the day after he was hit.

"I remember the whole thing," he said. "I didn't realize how bad it was until I was actually at the hospital when I walked past a mirror and saw, I guess, what everyone else had already seen. That's when I realized it was quite a sight."

At first, he said, doctors were pessimistic. Recently, though, their prognosis has improved.

"Now they're being kind of optimistic," Florie said. "I'm not going to try to get too excited because I know, right now, I can't see anything" out of the damaged eye. I'm definitely down a little. I can't see out of one eye and I've been sitting on a couch for two weeks."

Florie was 0-4 with a 4.56 ERA and one save in 29 relief appearances. He pitched for San Diego, Milwaukee and Detroit in a major-league career that began in 1994. He was traded to Boston on July 31, 1999.

Florie had another examination scheduled for Thursday. Right now, he has 20-200 vision with glasses, "which is still legally blind," he said.

"I'll basically, at one point, have to decide, OK, I'm going to have to try this with less vision in that eye," he said, "and basically teach myself how to catch and do everything that I need to do to be able to survive out there."