Accident didn’t stop Luke Trudel

OLD TOWN – Luke Trudel looks like a lot of high school sophomores trying to master the art of pitching a baseball. Standing 6-foot-2 and weighing 180 pounds, gangly is the word that comes to mind when watching the 15-year-old limber up in his gray and green Old Town High uniform with the yellow cap.

He’s got a whippy right arm that can make the ball dip in on righthanded hitters, but like most sophomores his concentration and control have been known to disappear quicker than a weekend homework assignment. His record is 0-2. His earned run average is an apprentice-level 5.56.

None of this would seem to make Trudel newsworthy in the least as he heads into his next scheduled start this afternoon against Hampden Academy at the Old Town field. That’s because this pitcher’s story isn’t about how others see him. It’s about his view of the world.

Luke Trudel is blind in one eye.

“You know how hard it is to play this game with two good eyes,” said Old Town coach Dave Paul, nodding appreciatively toward where Trudel stood talking with a teammate following a doubleheader with Presque Isle earlier this week. “Imagine trying to play with one eye closed.”

There are a couple of lessons to take from his story, Trudel wants you to know, which is why he agreed to tell it.

First, there’s the matter of the accident when he was 13 that robbed him of 90 percent of the vision in his right eye. It involved a BB gun, a friend, and equal amounts adolescent stupidity and bad luck.

“We were fooling around with the BB gun and we shouldn’t have been. We shot it. The BB bounced off a rock and went in my eye,” Trudel recounted, retracing the pellet’s path with a tanned finger, stopping just short of a clear blue right eye that outwardly appears normal.

The damage to his eye was severe. Trudel ended up at the Boston Eye and Ear Infirmary, where he underwent extensive surgery on his retina. The operation produced limited results.

“They said I probably wouldn’t regain any sight, but I’ve got some peripheral vision back,” Trudel said.

The injury effectively sidetracked a baseball career which had begun in Little League and blossomed in Senior League. Trudel lost two years of his development, including his freshman season, while adjusting to the world of monocular vision.

“Everything was tough at first. All the angles were different. But then my other eye took over,” he described.

Another kid might have given up on ever playing baseball again. As Paul said, the game is tough enough with two good eyes. Trudel admitted he was nervous, but he decided he would not let the injury force him to walk away from the game.

“I could still throw, so I figured I could pitch,” he shrugged.

At the time Trudel decided to come back, Old Town, which had graduated most of its top pitchers, was looking for arms.

“I had asked some of our guys if they knew of anyone who could pitch, and they told me there was this kid who threw pretty good in Senior League but who hadn’t pitched in awhile because he got hit in the eye with a BB,” Paul recalled.

This spring, the needs of Trudel and Paul converged.

“He threw in the gym in tryouts and he looked pretty good,” said the coach. “His ball moved a little bit. He didn’t throw all that hard but he threw strikes.”

As Trudel worked out, his confidence grew. By the time the season started last month, he had worked his way up to No. 2 starter in Old Town’s rotation.

In his first varsity start, Trudel no-hit defending Class A state champion Bangor for three innings. He wound up pitching six pretty good innings, yielding four hits and four earned runs in an eventual 8-0 loss.

He has been up and down since then, getting roughed up for five earned runs in 1 1/3 innings in a second loss to Bangor, then throwing eight strong innings without a decision last Monday against Nokomis.

“He’s done a good job and he’s going to get better,” assessed Paul, whose team is 6-6.

Trudel merely grins when asked about the future.

“I just want to keep playing and hopefully go to college,” he said.

And the second lesson he wants to impart?

“If something bad happens don’t give up. Keep going,” said the Old Town pitcher, showing excellent vision.