‘Am I going to lose my eye?’: St. John’s star overcomes blindness – New York Post
♫ Sunday, May 21st, 2017Cradled in his fathers arms, overcome with tears streaming down his cheeks, Jeff Belge had two questions:
Am I going to lose my eye? Will I ever play baseball again?
Belge, 9 years old at the time, and his cousin were skipping stones when he accidentally was hit squarely in the right eye with a rock that had slipped from his cousins hand, shattering his cornea. His eye became deflated like a balloon, white puss oozing out of it.
Fast forward seven years later, Belge is at a hotel in Atlanta, rough-housing with teammates after a long day of summer league baseball games. One of the Syracuse natives teammates accidentally sticks his finger in the same right eye, undoing the two surgeries from the first incident, and rupturing the globe in his eye. It had become deflated again.
You have to prepare yourself that we may have to remove his eye, his mother Karen was told by one doctor.
Yet, here he is, two traumatic experiences later, still pitching, an integral part of one of the best baseball teams in St. Johns history, a 6-foot-5 southpaw who throws mid-90s heat and has a professional future.
Belge is legally blind in his right eye, which was saved. The freshman can only see some colors and outlines of objects, relying solely on the left eye, in which he has 20/25 vision. But he doesnt see it as a limitation. It has been that way since he was 9. Its who he is.
I find ways around it, said Belge, who wears protective glasses. It doesnt really bother me.
Its just me having a dream and just following it. Its a bump along the way I had to get over.
After the first incident, doctors couldnt tell him if baseball was going to be part of his future. He had to miss a month of school. He didnt bother asking after the first few times. He didnt need anyone to answer the question for him.
I just told myself I was going to play, Belge said. I got on the field as soon as I could.
He started the road back with his little league coach, who would hit him tennis balls in the outfield, so he could get used to using just the one eye without fear of hurting himself. Belge would spend hours with his dad at the local park, pitching and hitting, training himself like he was learning the sport from scratch. When he got back into games, nearly a year later, he didnt think about the eye.
His focus was that intense. The injury had given him big-time motivation, determination, to push through things, he said.
If anything was a challenge, his father Tom said, it was trying to slow him down.
Belge made the Henninger High School varsity as a seventh grader, was also a standout basketball player and played quarterback for a season. He made it onto major league scouts radar as a sophomore, after striking out 11 opposite Scott Blewett, a second-round pick in 2014.
Belge was nearly a top draft pick despite the second incident costing him most of the summer prior to his senior year of high school, depriving him of several notable showcases in front of scouts.
The Red Sox, Brewers and Royals all offered Belge significant money in the third round, according to his father, money they turned down. Still, the Red Sox drafted him in the 32nd round as a courtesy.
I certainly hope in two years hes a Red Sox, said Ray Fagnant, the Red Sox area scout who followed him in high school. Hes a kid you always root for. Nothing is ever going to scare him.
The family liked the idea of him attending St. Johns, believing the experience of living in New York City and continuing to develop was too good to pass up. That bond with the Queens school grew in the summer before his senior year, following the incident. Depressed he was going to miss the showcases and unable to do much of anything baseball-related for six weeks, Belge sunk into depression. He was being forced to relive the traumatic accident from his childhood. All the work he had put in, all the time he spent staring down adversity, felt like a waste.
It put me in a bad place mentally, he said.
Pitching coach Corey Muscara, his lead recruiter, made sure to stay in close contact with Belge. Muscara would call him almost daily and suggest goals making his bed, losing a pound of weight per week, finishing a book as a way for him to keep active. It wasnt forgotten when it came time to make a decision about his future. It set it in stone, Wow, this guy really has my best interest at heart, Belge recalled.
Though Belge said he isnt thrilled with his performance this year on the mound hes 3-3 with a 5.13 ERA in nine starts the southpaw has been an integral part to one of the best teams in program history, just three wins shy of the most in St. Johns history. He has been a weekend starter as a freshman for the nationally-ranked Red Storm, with freshman Nick Mondak missing almost the entire year due to arm trouble and Kevin Magee just returning from his own injury.
I dont know how he does it, Mondak said of his teammate pitching with vision in only one eye. Its amazing.
Belge doesnt see it that way. This always has been his goal: to play baseball at a high level, and one day reach the major leagues.
The two accidents didnt change that. He expects a lot of himself, and remains confident he can be a major factor for St. Johns (40-9) in next weeks Big East Tournament and the NCAA Tournament that follows. He already has overcome so much, a few poor outings wont do much to that belief.
He doesnt take anything for granted, Karen said. When you have setbacks and have things taken from you, a lot of kids wouldve crumbled. A lot of kids wouldnt say I can do this again, maybe be scared of the mound, be afraid to get hurt. Not Jeffrey.
Its made Jeffrey a much stronger-willed person. It wasnt going to own him, and it didnt.
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'Am I going to lose my eye?': St. John's star overcomes blindness - New York Post