Vasquez Happy to Be Back From the Brink : Baseball: Tustin pitcher passes test after surgery to repair fractured vertebra.

February can be beautiful or blustery. This particular February day was the latter, but that didn’t keep Tustin right-hander Pepe Vasquez from feeling nervous as he stared at the Mater Dei batter pumping his bat back and forth.

This was a test. The preseason scrimmage was the first chance for Vasquez to prove he could come back from a back injury that had required surgery last summer, an injury that was threatening his baseball career.

Sure, some said he could resume playing, maybe even help the Tillers reach the playoffs. Others reminded him of the tricky nature of backs, how they can have their own agenda and how they are rarely the same once a surgeon starts cutting.

“Did I have doubt? Many times,” said Vasquez, 17. “I could remember the first time I tried to walk. I got halfway up my block and had to stop.”

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The back pain first came during a game of long toss, a mid-November game of catch between Vasquez and a buddy in 1993. He was trying to get his arm in shape for the upcoming baseball season. Nothing to it--as the ball is tossed back and forth, the distance is lengthened between throws so the arm gets a good workout.

After a certain distance, Vasquez realized he couldn’t throw farther or harder. Then suddenly, strong, sharp pains began shooting from his lower left back, down his left leg.

“I first thought I had pulled a muscle or was having a back spasm,” Vasquez said. The pain grew in intensity; Vasquez was taken by ambulance from the Tustin High practice field to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana.

This was nothing like the concussion Vasquez sustained in 1992 as a freshman, when he banged his skull while sliding head first into second base. Even today, he cannot remember much about the impact; when it happened he jarred his brain enough that, when asked, he couldn’t remember what year it was or who was President.

But that was a year ago. That didn’t have anything to do with his back pain. Or did it?

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The first clue Vasquez had something other than a bruised muscle came when he was being wheeled to the hospital’s observation room. He stopped breathing. Once revived, he stayed in the hospital three days as doctors tried to figure out what was wrong.

“They said because of the concussion they thought I had jammed something around the spine,” Vasquez said. “But they couldn’t explain the stopping of my breathing.”

Vasquez was released from the hospital, then underwent six weeks of therapy and exercise for what was diagnosed as muscle spasms. He tried to play in 1994, but the pain wouldn’t cease.

In March, Vasquez underwent a bone and a CAT scan for Dr. Mitchell Cohen, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in spinal surgeries. At last, an answer was found: a fractured vertebra. It was a fracture that was probably caused from the slide and collision that caused the concussion. A fracture that, instead of healing, was widening because it had gone undetected for so long.

Vasquez did not want surgery, but he had few options.

“They told me without surgery I’d have the pain the rest of my life,” he said. “I waited until the week after school let out.”

Last June 23, Vasquez put his back--and his baseball future--in Cohen’s hands.

“It was a pretty rare fracture--maybe less than 5% of cases I see,” Cohen said. “It’s not too dangerous, but it’s painful. I’d guess that it probably happened with the slide.

“The problem was no one could find the fracture on his X-rays. I did the bone scan that found it. And even when I knew where it was, I still couldn’t see it on the X-rays. . . . The bone had healed on the outside but not through the inside.”

When Vasquez awoke from the operation, Cohen told him that if he worked at his rehabilitation, he could be ready to pitch by Tustin’s opening game.

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For five months, Vasquez had to exercise and move with care, plus wear a plastic, portable body cast while a bone graft taken from his hip took hold.

“At first I couldn’t sit down five minutes,” Vasquez said. “I had to either stand up or lay down, but keep the back straight. The bone was stronger than the wire and screw they had put in to help it heal, and they were worried it would break or crack.”

But he was determined to play again. It had been a hard summer, watching his friends play in summer leagues. It was harder to take if they lost, especially if the score was close. He’d always think he could have done something to help.

He walked around the school track while others ran. He walked while the team had its winter workouts. He followed his doctor’s instructions faithfully.

Vasquez was cleared to do some light throwing in December. By January, he was throwing with a pitching motion. He remained cautiously optimistic; so far the back was cooperating.

It all came together that February day against Mater Dei.

This was the test.

Vasquez passed. He didn’t throw many innings, and he didn’t look particularly sharp. But he pitched without pain.

“I knew the back was fine,” Vasquez said. “I was rusty, I wasn’t strong. But I thought I was back.”

Vasquez finished the season 6-3 with a 2.95 earned-run average for Tustin, which won the Golden West League championship.

He gave up 65 hits and 26 earned runs in 61 innings, striking out 49 and walking 41. From March 31 on, Vasquez won five of six decisions.

He earned first team all-league honors.

“He was one of the most courageous athletes I’ve been around,” Tustin Coach Tim O’Donoghue said. “Before the accident, one of his trademarks was accuracy, and he was a little on the wild side this season. But next year I expect him again to be one of the better players around.”

Vasquez is happy there is a next year.

“I won’t ever take the game for granted again,” he said.