When injury happens that costs you an entire season (or most of it) as a player and/or a parent, how do you deal with it? Are you heartbroken or just accepting of the fact that this happens in sports?
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Yes.
Both, I will sprinkle in some anger at the universe and throw a small private pity party with a mix of what ifs playing in the background.
We know of a kid...
Missed all of sophomore year at HS due to injury. Played junior year and did well. Throws 90-93. Signs P5 D1. Senior year of HS, five games into the season, gets hurt running the bases and misses the entire rest of the season.
Goes to college. Actually gets some innings freshman year. Sophomore year is wiped by COVID-19. Worse, later in 2020 he tears UCL and needs TJS. As a result, he misses all of his Junior year at college. He's now in his 4th year of college.
So, he misses 4 of 6 seasons. How do you deal with that? Maybe it's different because he's a pitcher?
Me? It's looking like my son will miss his senior year of HS due to a non-life threatening injury that is the result of overuse and not trauma. He didn't get HBP. He wasn't in a car accident. He basically just worked out too much. And, by most accounts, he should get better and this is not forever impacting him.
I should be thrilled that it's not worse and that nothing really bad happened to him. But, I am upset because I feel his pain of losing a season. When you eat, sleep and live for the game, it's a tremendous void when it's taken away from you...no matter what the reason.
I'm so sorry about your son, losing your senior year really sucks, especially after the last 2 years. Can he ask the HS coach if he can help with the team? At least that way he will stay actively involved and keep learning the game. My son lost a year of baseball, and did help coach his HS team, he learned a ton. It wasn't as fun for us parents as if he was playing, but we got a kick out of seeing him do things in the games (especially the occasional mound visit), and just knowing that he was part of how the team was doing; in fact, we could still talk over the games with him, which is half the fun.
@anotherparent - Thx. I am sure he will be involved with the team if he's out.
@2022NYC posted:Both, I will sprinkle in some anger at the universe and throw a small private pity party with a mix of what ifs playing in the background.
^^^This is about as accurate as you can get. Francis, sorry about your son. He is in plenty of company after losing 2020, but its always hard. My son got mono summer before his 2020 senior year. He missed the summer he had really looked forward to. Started training hard for senior season. Came out killing it, covid. Trained. Got to college, had an arm issue they had to address, so they changed his throwing motion, lost fall. Never felt really comfortable with the motion that spring. Played very little. Now I talk to him and my biggest fear is that he is never going to be the same. Not ability wise. Mentally. Somewhere in all that time not playing, he lost his quiet confidence. It makes me sad, pissed off, angry that he got more than his share of bad luck, and then kind of back to acceptance that what will be, will be. He is more than baseball.
Good luck to your son. I hope that at least still being able to be with the team and part of the experience will help.
My son lost the summer between sophomore and junior year due to injury, and with it, he lost most D1 P5 interest as they all said they had to get that class' position players committed that summer. He, later, lost his senior season (20020) due to Covid. He was devastated with both, and I was for him. But, I kept that to myself, and continued to preach faith and fortitude. Put your head down and go to work. Ultimately, he landed at a Mid-Major, got to play the majority of games as a freshman, and loves it where he is. My advice, be the rock for him as best you can and good things will ultimately come. All things happen for a reason.
Thx @baseballhs
We still need to find out for sure. Ortho thinks hamate hook but wants an MRI. Could be? Could be something else?
I do know we have 4 weeks till practices start and about 7 weeks till the season starts.
If it's a hook, that's 10 weeks - 6 in cast and 4 for PT. In theory, we would have about 6 games left of the season at 10 weeks. But he would miss most of the season.
Now, if hook and they operate, then he's got a chance not to miss much. But, I would think surgery is a last resort and you want to avoid that...if possible.
On the bright side, he's playing in a summer college league and should be OK by then...if it's a hook.
But, we don't know anything for sure yet.
@JCG posted:Yes.
I stand by this answer, but I'll give the long version too.
My D3 kid began college in fall of 2017 and had a solid freshman campaign - he started from game one, lead his team in HR, was recognized as conference "rookie of the year". Sophomore year was difficult for him, as he was battling a nagging back injury all year. His power numbers dropped, but he still had a decent year, hitting just over .300. By junior year, his back was still not right, but he had adjusted his swing to compensate, and he was off to an all-conference type of start when CoVid ended it. Senior year he was elected captain, but his team was among those few that never played a game. He was slated to return to play as a grad student but he was offered a job he felt he could not refuse.
So as a baseball parent how do you deal with that? Like with any loss, you move on, one step at a time, and unfortunately you have a lot of company. And in this case you remind yourself that though it leaves a mark, it's not really a loss at all. It's the premature end of one part of your life and of his, one that you're both fortunate to have enjoyed for as long as you did. He's still there, a phone call away, and he's happy and he's healthy and he's started a great career that he might not have realized without graduating from a school that he definitely would not have been admitted into without baseball.
It's all good. Now I'm ready to root for your kids.
Hang in there, Francis, sounds like you still have a lot of games in front of you.
I'm really sorry to hear about your son getting hurt. Losing a season is always hard, losing your senior season is extra hard, and considering the past 2 years it's brutal to miss any more games at all.
As another guy who loves watching his kid play I feel for you (I might actually take it worse than my kid in your shoes). I'm glad to hear that he's going to recover and I'm glad that there are more games in front of him.
Youngest lost his Jr. year (2021) due to torn ACL in Oct 2020.
Longest year and a half of my life.
Boy, this may be the most timely thread I've seen here in terms of my own little world. My 2021's Juco is playing game 1 on Thursday, but there is zero chance my son will be playing in it. He's got a hand/wrist injury that is still in the TBD stages. Saw a small town orthro (Juco sits in a Kansas town of about 7K) yesterday and he thinks it's TTFC - https://www.physio-pedia.com/T...age_Complex_Injuries. MRI later this week.
I always figured that at some point, my son would lose a season of ball to injury. While there were a couple "oh shit" moments over the years, he only ever lost a season to Covid; never to injury. It looks like his time is now, unfortunately. We'll know soon enough. If I went back over every year he's played baseball, I could make a rational argument for why THAT year would be the worst one to lose to injury. There is ALWAYS sometime on the line and it feels profound at every age. So for his first year of college ball to be "it," it stands to reason that I'd feel THIS year is the worst to lose. But oddly, I don't really feel that way. Maybe I am just numb and when the actual news gets delivered I'll feel differently, but I don't think I will. I at least TOLD myself that I was going to loosen my grip once my son got to college ball. Sort of just give myself up to the process and allow the cards to fall where they may. So that might be one part of my relative calm. But I have immediately been able to focus on the upsides that could be associated with my son losing a year to a medical redshirt. And that actually started when I spoke to my son and understood that he's not freaking out over it and has a long view of sorts. Well, long view FOR HIM, anyway. He's June bday so he's "young" for his grade. He played fall ball with the Juco and trained with them all this time and continues to do what he can (but can't hit). Playing on his summer collegiate team can still happen. He is undeniably bigger, stronger and faster and given that he's undersized at 5'9", the last 6+ months have been great for him. And redshirting a year gives Covid's complications more time to wash out some from Jucos and 4-years. While things obviously won't be normal in one year, it might make the back end of his college career more normal. Redshirting will no doubt present a bunch of new challenges, but I'm optimistic that it's at least possible some good things can come out of it. Maybe even some great things?
It sucks to lose a season. My son lost post junior summer travel season of recruiting when he tore his MCL and PCL in the first travel game. He was expecting early summer offers. The schools disappeared. The board talked me off the ledge. ClevelandDad, a long time poster told me if my son wanted it badly enough he would make it happen. He did. It’s why I pass along the to advice to posters of injured players.
His injury had him miss his senior year of soccer. The team went to states. Missing the season and only playing baseball cost him a shot as his school’s athlete of the year.
In the fall he fell in rehab and needed shoulder separation surgery. The ortho told him baseball would be out since he wouldn’t be throwing until May. My son pointed his finger at the doctor. He told him he would be in the lineup Opening Day in March and he (the doctor) was going to help him make it happen. He was the Opening Day DH after chucking the sling two weeks previous. He was in left in two weeks and back in center in four.
But what was worse was finding out his baseball career was over in a doctor’s office. He played part of college junior year with a broken bone in his foot. He had surgery after the season. He missed summer ball. But, it wasn’t a big deal. He didn’t practice in the fall. At the end of January the ortho told him he could try to play and risk not walking properly the rest of his life or have a second surgery. He chose surgery.
What sucked was I didn’t know it when I was watching his last game the previous year in the conference tournament.
It sucks for a kid to lose his senior year of high school. It’s finally his turn to be the big dog. You can be the best player as a junior. But you’re not a senior and the best player.
I went to some of the high school soccer games to hang with the dads I had known since U9 travel. I only went to the college conference tournament to say good bye to the parents I met and liked.
The irony of these injuries is my daughter (three high school sports and college softball) never got injured. My ex wife (three high school sports and one season of college field hockey) never got injured. I (three high school sports and college baseball) broke two fingers freshman year of high school and missed two games before deciding to play with them taped. From an athletic standpoint my son was quicker and more agile than all of us.
I'm sorry to hear about Francis & DanJ's stories. Any player (and families) dealing with injury would be tough. Injury in all sports is a little like the "yips"... you don't talk about it and hope it never enters your world. I hope the boys come back stronger and better than ever.
My 2019 kid's experience was identical to JCG's kid's experience. '19's D3 didn't even attempt to have any athletics for the entire academic year of 20-21. Tough decision to swallow but it was a clean break and it was even-handed, despite its snow flakiness. He has two seasons left (if he goes to grad school, 4 seasons) and he's starting this season as the all-time leader in his college's batting average: 1.000. He was up only one time in 2020 (because of illness, COVID, and talent) but that's not the important thing. He's smart enough, he's almost good enough, and, doggone it, people like him. He studied remotely in 2020-21, he got better at surfing and kayaking, he fished several times a week, he got involved with a nice girl, and he shadowed an orthopedic surgeon. He adapted.
2017 kid and his D3 team were shafted in ways I've described before. I think they're worth mentioning again because I'm not aware of a more messed up college response to Covid and athletics. The school started out doing what everyone else was doing: Cancelling 2020, his jr. season after 3 games, and waiting to see about 2021. The school encouraged kids to live off campus during fall 2021 and my son and most of his teammates (by then Seniors) did just that. They got a big house on Cape Cod, which allowed them some social normalcy. Came home for Christmas and when the second semester started the school was still not allowing athletics, though the admins kept saying let's wait and see. They didn't want to completely cancel stuff too soon. But the isolation on campus was extreme so the guys decided to live together again off campus, this time in North Carolina on the beach in a place that is probably pretty lively in the summer but in the late winter and early spring was very quiet. Then the news came that the college was gonna try to have spring sports which got everyone excited but the next day the school decided that the only kids who would be allowed to play had to ALREADY be living ON campus. That ruled out 9 of the ten seniors on the team. Everyone was upset, parents more than the kids. My guy just kind of shrugged and told me to relax. I was angry and wrote a blistering letter to the president about how she had just made the COVID situation even worse than it already was and that now it felt like punishment to all those off campus athletes, not just baseball players, who were only doing what the school had encouraged them to do in the first place. No response, Shocking, I know.
But the worst was yet to come: The team still had about 15 guys on campus, including the team's best player, who was the one senior living on campus because he needed access to a legit lab to do his thesis on the origins of the solar system. Anyway he moved from rf to catcher, the league had a watered down season, like 12 games about, and our team manages to win it all and qualify for regionals. And this is where it gets truly unreal. The school decided the team couldn't travel because of covid concerns even though they had traveled several times during the spring already and even though at the time Covid was going down. So the league champions had to stay home after all that. My guy didn't care, at least not outwardly. He'd been hired by a private equity firm in Boston and was eager to make the most of his last few months of "freedom" before going to work. I took the notebook I had carefully prepared for the 2020 and 2021 seasons, each game with a page of its own, multiple colored pens, all sorts of codes and symbols, my own little language and turned it into a shrine that sits on my desk to this day:
I'm feeling better, but it's a process.
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Man these stories...I've had two athletes lose seasons because of injury. Oldest daughter tore her ACL in an early season game her junior year. She came back and was a captain her senior year but it helped her decide her priorities for college and she decided she didn't want her basketball options to limit where she went to school. She interned at the National Malaria Control in Tanzania that summer (never would have been able to with AAU basketball) and ended up going to Notre Dame where she managed women's basketball, got a degree in Environmental Science and Anthropology and has a great job in her field.
Middle daughter is dealing with a back injury her senior at Northwestern. Coming off an NCAA berth and first round win where she was third on the team in scoring, second in rebounding and steals and on the All Big 10 Defensive team. She was voted captain and worked on her shot all summer to really make a jump in her game. Was on the radar for WNBA. Season started well but nagging back pain became unbearable after a lift and a tough run and gun game where she played almost the whole game. She has been grounded since then (I think it was the 4th game of the season). She has responded extremely well. She sits right next to the coaches (last two games she actually moved up so she is sitting WITH the coaches...a WNAB all-star sits after her LOL). As parents, it's hard because of what could have been but we are just grateful because she is still an integral part of a great program and she is learning to lead in other ways. We are facing red shirt no red shirt and what does she do with her remaining eligibility (will it be one year or two years). Certainly things we never thought we would be thinking about now...
I feel like I short-changed you all by not giving you a more thorough visual of my process. I've asked the guy in the white hat throwing spices around, surrounded by candles, etc to bless baseball. This scene sums up the last couple of years pretty well. Bonus footage: I'm the lead singer for the Cowboy Bachelors (really, I am) Thank you, David Byrne. From his film, "True Stories."
I think @Bulldog nailed it: “be the rock for him as best you can.”
My son had various sprains/concussions over the years, but was really tested going into Junior year with an unusual complete pcl tear. He needed and deserved to have his own reactions without dealing with my anxiety or sense of loss. It became a deeply spiritual time for him, a time when he really figured out what he was capable of and how he wanted to show up in the world. He knew he could lose baseball and his PT told him his knee would just always hurt sometimes and never be back to normal. He worked and worked and worked to make his knees stronger. He played junior year in a metal brace, until Covid canceled the season.
The story hasn’t ended, but he went from a promising Sophomore to the team captain and MVP his senior year. From being a pretty slow runner to breaking a school record for stolen bags. He could teach the average PT a bit about how to build bulletproof knees. He was always centered, but he found a spiritual center during this time that I couldn’t have given him.
The day he signed to play college ball (JuCo), we were driving out of the school and I pointed out we were at the ortho surgeon a year ago exactly, hearing the news of the MRI. I tried to manage my own emotions throughout the injury, but let off a good cry at that point.
edit: It didn’t appear to be a “deeply spiritual” time at the time - it sucked and was kinda depressing and scary for all. But in retrospect…
@Long415 posted:I think @Bulldog nailed it: “be the rock for him as best you can.”
My son had various sprains/concussions over the years, but was really tested going into Junior year with an unusual complete pcl tear. He needed and deserved to have his own reactions without dealing with my anxiety or sense of loss. It became a deeply spiritual time for him, a time when he really figured out what he was capable of and how he wanted to show up in the world. He knew he could lose baseball and his PT told him his knee would just always hurt sometimes and never be back to normal. He worked and worked and worked to make his knees stronger. He played junior year in a metal brace, until Covid canceled the season.
The story hasn’t ended, but he went from a promising Sophomore to the team captain and MVP his senior year. From being a pretty slow runner to breaking a school record for stolen bags. He could teach the average PT a bit about how to build bulletproof knees. He was always centered, but he found a spiritual center during this time that I couldn’t have given him.
The day he signed to play college ball (JuCo), we were driving out of the school and I pointed out we were at the ortho surgeon a year ago exactly, hearing the news of the MRI. I tried to manage my own emotions throughout the injury, but let off a good cry at that point.
edit: It didn’t appear to be a “deeply spiritual” time at the time - it sucked and was kinda depressing and scary for all. But in retrospect…
Can relate to 99% of your story.