BASEBALL TAB COVER STORY -- Road to recovery: Neal talks about long journey of healing

By Allen Etzler
Published in Sports on March 13, 2015 1:48 PM

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aetzler@newsargus.com

For a brief moment, sunlight beams down on home plate as the boy in the all black catcher's gear crouches behind the plate. Clouds are moving in and out, but the sun is shining and it is finally warm.

It feels like baseball weather, and catcher Derek Neal takes a throw from Rosewood head coach Jason King.

King's throw hits the mitt and Neal pops up and hurls it back to his coach as if he's throwing out a runner at second base.

Today was supposed to be the day. The day he would throw someone out from behind the plate. The day that a two-year journey that would culminate in something Neal thought he may never be able to do again.

"This was going to be the first day since July 31, 2012, I got to catch in a game, so I was really excited," he says. "And it was warm, so I was going to be able to really throw. Let it rip. So this kind of sucks."

Rain from the night before ruined that moment.

For now, he fires the ball back to his coach with no reservation or any sign that there are four anchors screwed into his shoulder. No sign that his career was almost over before it ever really started.

The journey is not quite over.

But the moment is coming.

*

Neal still vividly remembers the day it all went wrong.

Sept. 13, 2012.

He was the quarterback on his middle school football team and dropped back to pass. A defender came around the edge and sacked Neal before he could throw.

The hit jarred his shoulder and he immediately felt the sting.

He didn't know what was wrong, but he couldn't throw.

It was originally diagnosed as a strain. Doctors said he would be fine.

Neal went to physical therapy for six months to try and rehab what they thought was an injury with no serious structural damage.

The physical therapy didn't work.

Nothing worked.

So doctors gave him an arthrogram -- a procedure in which a needle digs into a joint and injects a dye to see if there is any kind of structural damage. They seemed concerned about a rotator cuff injury, but the dye showed no damage.

Instead it leaked through a different ligament, showing there was in fact serious structural damage.

A year and six days.

That's how long it took for Neal to find out he had a torn labrum.

*

Neal remembers all of the conversations.

Sitting at lunch with his best friend and teammate, Boone Moody.

Driving in the car with his mother to doctors that could look at his arm.

The time the doctor broke the news to him.

Each time the topic of surgery arose. And each time it came up he thought his baseball career was over.

Surgery was not an option at first. He recalls sitting in the cafeteria and Moody asking him what he would do if he had to have surgery.

"I told him I would probably just give up baseball," Neal said. "I didn't want to have surgery. I was scared."

Then the doctor broke the news that Neal would need it if he was ever going to play baseball again. But that still wasn't enough to convince him.

"The biggest thing that made me do it was he told me that as I got older the problem would get worse and I wouldn't be able to lift my arms past (my shoulders)," Neal said.

Reluctantly, Neal had the surgery.

Four anchors were put in his shoulder to repair the damage. He would spend a year in rehab in which he started a six-month throwing program to rebuild the strength back up to get behind the plate.

*

As Rosewood players gather around the dugout to prepare for team photos, the players are curious how each one should pose.

Neal is positioned next to Moody on the dugout bench ... as always. They have been best friends since they were playing coach pitch. In fact, it was Moody who convinced Neal not to give up baseball through the journey to recovery.

"He was just there for me the whole time," Neal said. "He told me he would be and he really was a big part of me getting the surgery and not giving up baseball."

Moody, a sophomore pitcher and shortstop, kept encouraging Neal partly because he knew letting Neal quit would be wasting his talent.

"I mean he's always been my best friend," Moody said. "So I made sure I was there for him. We always grew up saying we were going to play in high school together, we would dream of playing college ball together or against each other, going to the MLB. So I wanted him to keep the dream going.

"He's really good."

Neal was an integral part of the Eagles' team last year as a freshman designated hitter who provided big hits in several key situations. He drove in two runs in the eastern regional championship series last season against Whiteville.

He drove in another two runs in a pinch-hit role against Spring Creek that proved to be the game-winning runs and handed the Gators' their first defeat.

This year, he fully expects to contribute with the bat again, but his ability to contribute defensively will surely be a welcomed addition.

"It was good watching him take at-bats last year," Moody said. "He helped us a lot at the plate. But it hurt me watching not be able to do what he wanted to behind the plate. I'm excited for him to get back there now. I miss it. It's been a while."

*

Neal has been counting down the days until he can catch again. It's been more than 580 days since he last threw someone out who was trying to steal.

Nearly 600 days, four anchors and a new throwing motion later, and he thinks he's ready.

"I'm so excited to get out there and throw one down," Neal said.

But even after the surgery, Neal still wasn't sure he could get to this point. When he went to begin his throwing program he couldn't throw. The ball couldn't get there.

He spent countless afternoons with Moody outside building up his arm strength and altered his motion to help him get the ball where it needs to go.

"He used to have a cannon," Moody said. "So it was weird to watch him throw and not really be able to get it to me."

Neal knew how far he had come after the surgery, so he never thought about giving up. But he still grew frustrated trying to learn a completely new motion.

"That was probably the most frustrating part was going from being able to throw so well to now not hardly able to throw it anywhere," Neal said.

Now, with his arm as healed as it will get, he's slowly getting back closer to the way he used to throw before the injury.

"It was like being four years old again and learning how to throw a ball," Neal said.

*

If there was one benefit to all of this, Neal admits it was that the injury happened so early in his life.

He has those dreams of college ball, so a major shoulder injury that requires surgery can really only occur early in a career. Tearing a labrum in his junior or senior season would have been a death sentence to those hopes, he said.

But Neal is just a sophomore who was able to impress people with his bat last season, despite actually re-injuring the same shoulder in the eastern regional final as he stood in the on-deck circle.

"If there is one good thing about it, it's that it happened before I got to high school, and not my junior or senior season," Neal said. "If that would have happened and I was being recruited, it would have been really bad."

Now his sophomore season is another opportunity to impress people on the other side of the ball. One he is optimistic about taking advantage of.

*

When Neal steps into the batter's box before an at-bat he bends over and draws in the dirt with his finger.

"Phillipians 4:13," he writes.

The Bible verse that reads "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," is a mantra Neal has tried to live his whole life by. But it was never more tested during recovery.

When he injured himself.

When he couldn't figure out what was wrong.

When he found out about surgery.

When he tried to re-learn how to throw.

All of it tested his faith.

"Honestly, it got weak at times," Neal recalls. "My mom really helped me out with that. She's always seeing the positives and the good in things. So when I got down she made sure that I didn't stay down and that I kept going on the right path."

Now he's hoping to come out and prove just how much stronger he is because of what he has been through.

Neal sits back against the dugout bench and looks out at the field he's been longing to play on. He is wearing his shin guards and old school catcher's helmet. Finally, he looks a lot like how he imagined he would look on a high school field two years ago.

Even if only for a moment, he's back in his gear.

He is asked to sum up this journey -- a road filled with peaks and valleys.

Neal has to think about it.

It's not a road, he decides.

"The only thing I can think of is it's been like a roller coaster," he says. "Just to have all the highs and lows and have the injury and not be able to figure out what it was. To getting the surgery and re-learning how to throw. To re-injuring it. To being here. Yeah. It's been a roller coaster."

The best part of the roller coaster is always when it hits the highest point. That's coming soon. Once he throws out his first runner.

And obviously he will be throwing that ball to his best buddy, Boone.

"Oh (heck) yeah," Moody said. "I'm definitely taking that throw."