Out of the Lineup -- But Still in the Game
By Corey Lyons
Contra Costa Newspapers
July 13, 1997
LIVERMORE -- There's an unusual image floating somewhere in Jerome Alviso's head as he takes a series of mechanical swings from the on-deck circle -- an unsightly, shaggy, childhood mutt named Piner.
Sadly, Piner was struck by a car and killed. But his image has been implanted in Alviso's mind like some massive effigy; it is his link to the past, his quirky source of inspiration.
Alviso, a 1993 Granada High School graduate, is pursuing a career as a major-league baseball player. He was chosen by the Colorado Rockies in the 17th round of baseball's draft June 3.
Tom Ebbitt, who owned Piner, is Alviso's best friend. Ebbitt had aspirations of playing big-league ball with Alviso until an auto accident in 1994 that left him a paraplegic dashed his hopes.
After the accident, Ebbitt also a 1993 Granada graduate and longtime teammate of Alviso's sent glossy photos of Piner to his friend for good fortune. He's hoping Alviso can complete their childhood dream, albeit alone.
"When he (got hurt) it kind of put baseball in perspective, but it also made me more hungry to reach my goal and make it," Alviso said two days after the draft. "He's excited for me, and that made me more excited about playing."
The accident
Tragedy extinguished Ebbitt's hopes. It robbed him of the use of his legs. It robbed him of his dream. The accident occurred just months after Ebbitt was reunited with Alviso as a member of the Daly City Fog, a summer All-Star team comprising Bay Area athletes from local universities and junior colleges.
On Oct. 2, 1994, Ebbitt was sleeping inside the camper of a small pickup driven by an acquaintance from school. They and others from school were on their way to Chico to visit mutual friends. It was about 3 a.m.
Inside the shell, Ebbitt felt the truck take a sudden swerve off the road. He felt the truck strike something -- probably a signpost. The vehicle then rumbled down an embankment.
"I remember hitting something and waking up," he said. "I tried to sit up, then I was tossed around inside the camper shell."
The driver of the truck had dozed off, and Ebbitt was thrown around inside the camper, crashing against each wall again and again. He broke his neck when the truck hurtled into a tree.
For a moment, he wasn't sure if he was dead or alive.
The driver was not injured. The other passenger was paralyzed from the waist down.
Ebbitt was taken to a hospital in Chico where, paralyzed from the waist down, he spent several days before being flown to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Redwood City. Alviso, ironically, was making headlines as a starting shortstop for Canada College in Redwood City at the time.
Ebbitt ended up lying in a hospitable bed. He drifted in and out of consciousness for seven months -- the length of an entire major-league baseball season. His weight dropped from 196 pounds to 129 pounds during the first two months in the hospital. His kidneys failed constantly, and his lungs were regularly filled with liquids. He couldn't utter a word for about five months.
He almost gave up.
Cards from strangers
"It just kind of seems surreal now," he said. "Eventually, you get on or you don't. I had so many people who supported me. There was not a day that I didn't have a visitor. I got 500 to 600 cards, a lot from people I didn't even know."
Alviso found out about his best friend's mishap just hours after it occurred. He made a trip to visit his ailing friend within a week, although Ebbitt's condition allowed little interaction.
"It was kind of shocking," Alviso said. "I was concerned about him getting through the initial stuff. Anytime you get an injury like that, (you) could be on life support for a few days or a few months.
"It was more about surviving than anything else."
Alviso knew that his friend -- gritty and scrappy by nature -- had the strength to do it. It was just a matter of time.
"He was struggling. He was conscious, but he struggled to talk," Alviso said. "I wasn't sure where he'd be from there."
Alviso would eventually make weekly visits, usually on Monday evenings, to sit and offer consolation.
"He could read my lips and, pretty much, my mind," Ebbitt said. "We watched Monday Night Football. I'd be totally out of it, falling in and out of sleep during the game. He'd just sit there and watch the game."
It was an unusual friendship from the start. They were different.
They became friends during their sophomore year at Granada High, although they had known each other since they were seventh-graders at Junction Avenue Middle School.
"Our personalities are extremely different," Ebbitt said. "Besides being best friends, we don't have a lot in common. Sports drew us together, and we always had a thing of pushing each other, outdoing each other."
Alviso was more quiet, a hard worker, while Ebbitt was more sociable and less enthusiastic about homework. Alviso had the natural gifts of a great player, while Ebbitt had to run a little harder and throw a little faster to compete.
"We were baseball-yard rats," Alviso said. "We'd go out early and stay out late. I remember us going to the park, hitting and taking grounders whenever we had the time."
Said Ebbitt: "If one of us didn't want to take extra batting practice or extra ground balls, one of us would force one to pick each other up."
Ebbitt was a starting catcher during his final season in 1993, while Alviso was coming into his own as a hard-hitting shortstop (.351 batting average) and a stellar relief pitcher.
"Both were very hard-working guys," said Mike Vingo, their coach at Granada in 1993. "They were almost like brothers in high school. Anything either one of them earned, it was due to hard work."
Ebbitt spent time at Modesto and Shasta junior colleges after he graduated from Granada, and in the summer of 1994 he was reunited with Alviso as a member of the Fog.
Then came the accident.
A new focus
Rather than alienating himself in misery, Ebbitt, currently finishing his studies at Las Positas College, began exploring reasons to live. He still had his mind. He still had drive. People cared about him.
He just had to readjust his vision. Shake it up a little bit.
"The injury made me a thousand times a better student," he said. "Now that Jerome is playing professionally, I'm pretty confident in getting my master's before him."
The injury cleared Ebbitt's mind. He now supports Alviso even more than before.
"Tom amazes me," said Ebbitt's mother, Teri Lambert. "I thought that'd be the hard part for Tom, watching Jerome go on. Because that's all Tom wanted, to play ball. He's found a different avenue. He's just a realist."
Ebbitt has watched Alviso, who attended Cal State Fullerton, play 20 to 30 times since the accident. "It wasn't hard to watch Jerome play," Ebbitt said. "The hard part -- the part that made me mad -- was when sometimes I'd see a player who didn't respect the game. That made me mad more than anything.
"I watched Jerome work really hard. I can see that he had a lot of respect for the game."
Said Alviso: "He always loved baseball. It's nice for me to know that he was there, watching a game that's enjoyable to him."
Contra Costa Newspapers
July 13, 1997
LIVERMORE -- There's an unusual image floating somewhere in Jerome Alviso's head as he takes a series of mechanical swings from the on-deck circle -- an unsightly, shaggy, childhood mutt named Piner.
Sadly, Piner was struck by a car and killed. But his image has been implanted in Alviso's mind like some massive effigy; it is his link to the past, his quirky source of inspiration.
Alviso, a 1993 Granada High School graduate, is pursuing a career as a major-league baseball player. He was chosen by the Colorado Rockies in the 17th round of baseball's draft June 3.
Tom Ebbitt, who owned Piner, is Alviso's best friend. Ebbitt had aspirations of playing big-league ball with Alviso until an auto accident in 1994 that left him a paraplegic dashed his hopes.
After the accident, Ebbitt also a 1993 Granada graduate and longtime teammate of Alviso's sent glossy photos of Piner to his friend for good fortune. He's hoping Alviso can complete their childhood dream, albeit alone.
"When he (got hurt) it kind of put baseball in perspective, but it also made me more hungry to reach my goal and make it," Alviso said two days after the draft. "He's excited for me, and that made me more excited about playing."
The accident
Tragedy extinguished Ebbitt's hopes. It robbed him of the use of his legs. It robbed him of his dream. The accident occurred just months after Ebbitt was reunited with Alviso as a member of the Daly City Fog, a summer All-Star team comprising Bay Area athletes from local universities and junior colleges.
On Oct. 2, 1994, Ebbitt was sleeping inside the camper of a small pickup driven by an acquaintance from school. They and others from school were on their way to Chico to visit mutual friends. It was about 3 a.m.
Inside the shell, Ebbitt felt the truck take a sudden swerve off the road. He felt the truck strike something -- probably a signpost. The vehicle then rumbled down an embankment.
"I remember hitting something and waking up," he said. "I tried to sit up, then I was tossed around inside the camper shell."
The driver of the truck had dozed off, and Ebbitt was thrown around inside the camper, crashing against each wall again and again. He broke his neck when the truck hurtled into a tree.
For a moment, he wasn't sure if he was dead or alive.
The driver was not injured. The other passenger was paralyzed from the waist down.
Ebbitt was taken to a hospital in Chico where, paralyzed from the waist down, he spent several days before being flown to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Redwood City. Alviso, ironically, was making headlines as a starting shortstop for Canada College in Redwood City at the time.
Ebbitt ended up lying in a hospitable bed. He drifted in and out of consciousness for seven months -- the length of an entire major-league baseball season. His weight dropped from 196 pounds to 129 pounds during the first two months in the hospital. His kidneys failed constantly, and his lungs were regularly filled with liquids. He couldn't utter a word for about five months.
He almost gave up.
Cards from strangers
"It just kind of seems surreal now," he said. "Eventually, you get on or you don't. I had so many people who supported me. There was not a day that I didn't have a visitor. I got 500 to 600 cards, a lot from people I didn't even know."
Alviso found out about his best friend's mishap just hours after it occurred. He made a trip to visit his ailing friend within a week, although Ebbitt's condition allowed little interaction.
"It was kind of shocking," Alviso said. "I was concerned about him getting through the initial stuff. Anytime you get an injury like that, (you) could be on life support for a few days or a few months.
"It was more about surviving than anything else."
Alviso knew that his friend -- gritty and scrappy by nature -- had the strength to do it. It was just a matter of time.
"He was struggling. He was conscious, but he struggled to talk," Alviso said. "I wasn't sure where he'd be from there."
Alviso would eventually make weekly visits, usually on Monday evenings, to sit and offer consolation.
"He could read my lips and, pretty much, my mind," Ebbitt said. "We watched Monday Night Football. I'd be totally out of it, falling in and out of sleep during the game. He'd just sit there and watch the game."
It was an unusual friendship from the start. They were different.
They became friends during their sophomore year at Granada High, although they had known each other since they were seventh-graders at Junction Avenue Middle School.
"Our personalities are extremely different," Ebbitt said. "Besides being best friends, we don't have a lot in common. Sports drew us together, and we always had a thing of pushing each other, outdoing each other."
Alviso was more quiet, a hard worker, while Ebbitt was more sociable and less enthusiastic about homework. Alviso had the natural gifts of a great player, while Ebbitt had to run a little harder and throw a little faster to compete.
"We were baseball-yard rats," Alviso said. "We'd go out early and stay out late. I remember us going to the park, hitting and taking grounders whenever we had the time."
Said Ebbitt: "If one of us didn't want to take extra batting practice or extra ground balls, one of us would force one to pick each other up."
Ebbitt was a starting catcher during his final season in 1993, while Alviso was coming into his own as a hard-hitting shortstop (.351 batting average) and a stellar relief pitcher.
"Both were very hard-working guys," said Mike Vingo, their coach at Granada in 1993. "They were almost like brothers in high school. Anything either one of them earned, it was due to hard work."
Ebbitt spent time at Modesto and Shasta junior colleges after he graduated from Granada, and in the summer of 1994 he was reunited with Alviso as a member of the Fog.
Then came the accident.
A new focus
Rather than alienating himself in misery, Ebbitt, currently finishing his studies at Las Positas College, began exploring reasons to live. He still had his mind. He still had drive. People cared about him.
He just had to readjust his vision. Shake it up a little bit.
"The injury made me a thousand times a better student," he said. "Now that Jerome is playing professionally, I'm pretty confident in getting my master's before him."
The injury cleared Ebbitt's mind. He now supports Alviso even more than before.
"Tom amazes me," said Ebbitt's mother, Teri Lambert. "I thought that'd be the hard part for Tom, watching Jerome go on. Because that's all Tom wanted, to play ball. He's found a different avenue. He's just a realist."
Ebbitt has watched Alviso, who attended Cal State Fullerton, play 20 to 30 times since the accident. "It wasn't hard to watch Jerome play," Ebbitt said. "The hard part -- the part that made me mad -- was when sometimes I'd see a player who didn't respect the game. That made me mad more than anything.
"I watched Jerome work really hard. I can see that he had a lot of respect for the game."
Said Alviso: "He always loved baseball. It's nice for me to know that he was there, watching a game that's enjoyable to him."
posted by Corey at 9:30 PM
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