It was March 15 and the Jefferson Cannoneers made the 400 mile trip south to Maryland to face the Frederick Community College Cougars. The Cougars are off to a tremendous start, and they ultimately would go 50-9 before losing in the NJCAA Div-II College World Series.
The Cannoneers, on the other hand, just lost their first two games in blowout fashion and faced a challenge in the upstart Cougars.
Emerson Gross, cleanup hitter for the Cannoneers, steps to the plate and hits a ground ball. He puts his head down and hustles towards the base knowing it will be a close play. Just before he hits the bag, the first baseman, trying to field the errant throw, gets in the way of Gross and they collide–knocking both players to the ground. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the Cannoneers made the 400 mile trip and lost all four games, now they were faced with the prospect of their cleanup hitter being injured.
The 6’0″ graduate of Newfield High School got an MRI and it revealed something even worse than he anticipated–fractured scaphiod bone in both wrists, fractured lunate bone in one wrist and a torn ligament in the other.
“I looked for the best surgeon for this because of it being such an unusual injury and spoke with several surgeons but felt the most comfortable with Dr. Andrew Leo located in Commack,” said Gross. “With a combined 10-and-a-half hours on surgery which I had screws and wires were placed in my wrist preparing to be casted for the minimum of three months during the summer season,” he added.
Of course, even with that there was no guarantee that he would return to full health.
“The scaphiod could never heal because of lack of blood flow to assistance in the healing i have to wear bone stimulators for a minimum of 10 hours a day. Returning for an injury like this is 30 percent because of both wrist being fractured at the same time,” he said.
To ensure that he has the best chance of returning, Gross noted that staying positive will be crucial part of the battle.
Physical therapy, of course, will be as well.
“To help to start my rehab I have been at Professional Athletic Performance Center training with Dean Maddalone who I have trained with since High School,” he said. “As soon as my casts are removed I will continue with Dean as well as Professional PT in Smithtown with Joe Kozlowski. Their facility has rehabbed and trained athletes such as Jose Reyes, Steven Matz, and along with the New York Islanders.Now that Gross has graduated from the two-year program at Jefferson, he will wait on his injury heals until he “fully commits” to another school. He noted he has “quite a few offers right now”.
He said he will miss his days with his teammates at Jefferson, whom he considers to be brothers.
Gross will try to follow in the path of his idol, Derek Jeter, and return to the game he loves. He always had great admiration for the way he conducts himself on-and-off the field.
There’s no doubt that Gross faces tough odds to return to the middle of the order in a baseball game, but he surely didn’t come this far to give up now.
