I wanted to start this thread the day before my son is scheduled to have surgery to repair a torn labrum. I would like t offer updates as to how the surgery, rehab, and recovery goes. Hoping this will help other players and parents deal with similar situations in the future.
To give some back ground, my son, Junior5, just graduated from high school in Arizona and is committed to play at an NAIA school in Nebraska. He is catcher, so you can imagine all the questions that float through my head about his ability to get back to the level he needs in order to play that position effectively. Junior5 is also been somewhat of a late bloomer physically and never gotten the notoriety of a top player in our area. He was 5’3” 130 lbs. his freshman year and really didn’t grow until his junior year. He is now 6’0” and 195 lbs. He always had been a fundamentally sound player with great leadership skills. I always drew comparisons to Craig Counsell. A hard working player who could play a lot of positions but was never considered the first option at any position. But he always found his way into the lineup. His was the case at every level he played at.
He enjoyed a successful senior year but wasn’t the starting catcher although he was recruited by many NAIA and D3 schools to be a catcher. He played his senior season at First base and when the season was over we searched for summer team where he could get innings behind the plate. His tryout with a Connie Mack team went extremely well. His pop times were 1.93-1.96 average, He is also hit the ball very well. We were approached by the evaluators who were area scouts about how well he did and they liked his skills and told us he was “projectable” down the road. Whether that was them blowing smoke or not, it was the first time anyone at that level approached him or me about his skills on the field. The next weekend he went back for the second round of tryouts and he couldn’t throw. His arm was hurting so bad that he couldn’t complete warm ups. The coaches told him to shut it down and not to worry; he had made the team as their number one catcher.
After all these years of playing catch, hitting ground balls and throwing BP to learn that junior5 had torn labrum was devastating to me as a father who watched this kid have to work extra hard at every level just to prove he belonged. At point where he finally got to the fruits of all his hard work and have this happen doesn’t seem fair.
Watching him function for these past few weeks without baseball is difficult. I know he has long road ahead of him and maybe all the hard work he had to put in the past has prepared him for what he has to o to get back.
I know this got very long, but I wanted to set the stage for future updates as I attempt to share his progression back to the game he loves.
I will post the details of how the surgery went this weekend.
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