[GGByron]

"I think many speakers would still start with "He was hit by a ball", not "A ball hit him." We're not interested in assigning agency to the ball here, we're interested in the effects on the boy."

And you don't favor the shorter message?

[jameshart]

I don’t think I would. But not willing to stage a real life experiment where I need to convey this information in an emergency to test my hypothesis.