Baseball the Cure for Shooting Victim

Like a frisky Little Leaguer, John Wilson played and played Thursday on the Cal State Northridge baseball field. The freshman third baseman breathed in warm autumn air, teased teammates, loosened his arm and acted every bit the promising ballplayer he is.

It was hard to believe that only five weeks ago, Wilson was clinging to life after his father, Jack Allen Wilson, 41, allegedly shot him through the locked front door of the family’s Reseda home.

“It’s a miracle I’m here,” said Wilson, who suffered a punctured lung in the Sept. 30 incident. He had blood pumped from his lung for several days after the shooting, and has had 22 shotgun pellets removed from his chest.

Yet now he looks the picture of health, two long scars across his chest the only reminders of the shooting.

“I can run, field, throw and hit,” he said. “It’s a matter of my stamina. I have scars and I have shrapnel sitting in my body.”

Wilson, 18, a graduate of tiny Los Angeles Baptist High School in North Hills, has practiced for two weeks, fielding ground balls, taking batting practice against a pitching machine and participating in weightlifting and running drills. Next week, he will bat against teammates for the first time.

“The team could have handled it a lot of different ways, with me being only a freshman,” Wilson said. “But the veteran guys are like big brothers to me. They’ve made it clear they are there for me.”

And why wouldn’t they, says Erasmo Ramirez, a junior pitcher who was the staff ace with a 14-1 record last season.

“I tip my hat to him,” Ramirez said. “He is showing great courage just being here.”

Although many Northridge players had only met Wilson at the beginning of fall practice, they rushed to his side as soon as they could after he was shot.

Hospital visitors weren’t allowed for more than a week, but when Derek Morse, a freshman pitcher who shared a locker with Wilson, finally peeked in the room, he was taken aback. There sat Wilson, tossing a ball into a mitt.

The real shock came a day later, when Wilson walked into the Northridge locker room, a grin on his face and a sack of fast-food in his hand.

“I couldn’t believe it was him,” Morse said.

Wilson soon returned to classes, and began practicing with the team late last month.

“I sat in the hospital, and I laid out goals,” he said. “I wanted to get back to school, and get back with my team by mid-November. I guess I’m ahead of schedule.”

Like everyone else, Northridge Coach Mike Batesole is astounded by Wilson’s progress.

“I saw him two days after he was shot and I didn’t think he’d play again,” Batesole said. “I wasn’t even sure he was going to live.”

Until the shooting, Wilson’s college transition was going smoothly. He was approaching midterms, and three days before the shooting was assigned a locker by Batesole, a sign that he had made the team.

Wilson turned 18 the day before the shooting, which occurred at 6 a.m. Sept. 30. He planned to move into his own apartment nearer the campus that day.

“The whole weekend was to be a turning point in my life,” he said.

Wilson was home with his girlfriend, Victory Palmisano, 18, when, according to Detective Rick Swanston of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley Division, Jack Wilson approached the house looking for his estranged wife, Cynthia.

Cynthia Wilson and John’s 17-year-old sister, Wendy, had moved from the house several weeks earlier, and John was there to pick up belongings.

“I knew it would have been bad news if he got in the house,” John Wilson said of his father.

According to John, Jack Wilson fired once through the door, striking John in the right arm. The young man moved closer to the door, and Jack fired again, this time hitting his son in the chest. Police said the elder Wilson knew his son was standing behind the door.

The unemployed construction worker fled to a friend’s house, and after checking into Olive View-UCLA Medical Center the next day, was arrested.

While waiting for an ambulance, John thought he would die. “I was lying on the floor and I couldn’t breathe,” he said. “There was a sharp, piercing pain in my lungs and my vision was pitch-black with blotches of red and white.”

Palmisano, a Pepperdine freshman and Wilson’s girlfriend of four years, knelt beside him and prayed.

“He was basically saying goodbye to me,” she said.

Wilson’s swift recovery has surprised even him.

“I had two weeks in the hospital to think about all this,” he said. “When I got out, I wanted to be clearheaded enough to get on with life. The worst thing I could have done is change the direction of what I was doing.”

But his girlfriend still worries that Wilson is not confronting the emotional fallout of the incident.

“Everything that happens, he says, ‘Let’s make it better,’ ” she said. “He has a lot of issues to deal with on the emotional side. It may take him years to accept what happened.”

Jack Wilson is charged with three criminal counts, including attempted murder, and has undergone psychiatric evaluation at the men’s central jail. John has seen his father twice in court. The two have not spoken.

“Mentally, it’s not the easiest thing thinking your dad was out to kill you,” Wilson said. “I’m not grappling with that yet. I love my dad and forgive him. I want him to get better.”