A Memorable G Debut Debut

By JENNA MARINATribune correspondent

Published: Apr 17, 2008

AINESVILLE - As Chris Freshcorn was about to head out onto McKethan Stadium's field for a recent baseball practice, the freshman infielder stopped for a moment in the visitor's dugout.

"You still battin' a thousand?" someone asked, playfully.

"Nah," the Alonso High graduate said with a shrug and a smile.

Freshcorn has appeared in nine of Florida's 37 games this season, stepping up to the plate just seven times. But his sly smile hinted there was a story to be told.

Days before Florida's season opener in late February, Freshcorn took a pitch to the face.

When Freshcorn finally was able to get up off the ground, Florida's trainer took him into the training room, wiped off the blood, stuck a Band-Aid over the wound and told him to ice it as much as possible.

Freshcorn called his parents, who live in Tampa, and sent pictures via cell phone so they could see the swelling and the purple shiner surrounding his bloodshot left eye.

"I don't really take things that serious, so I was just like, 'It's no big deal,'" said Freshcorn, known as "Freshy" to his friends and teammates. "Once [my parents] saw the pictures they were like, 'It's kind of a big deal.'"

The swelling subsided after a week's time, but a CT scan later revealed he had five breaks on the left side of his face.

He underwent surgery Feb. 25, and what was supposed to be a two-hour procedure extended to four hours when the doctors discovered more eggshell cracks near his eye socket.

The doctors cleared him to play almost immediately, but Freshcorn laid low for the next 10 days, sticking to a liquid diet because it hurt too much to chew. He lost about 15 pounds during the ordeal.

"I didn't really have any energy," he said. "I wasn't eating. I just didn't feel good at all."

Florida coach Kevin O'Sullivan wanted to wait for the perfect, low-pressure situation to get Freshcorn into action. The seventh inning of a 15-0 trouncing of Campbell on March 5 seemed as good a time as any. O'Sullivan walked down the bench, looked at Freshcorn and asked him a critical question.

"Can you swing?"

Freshcorn said he could.

"He's kind of real calm and cool and didn't say anything," O'Sullivan said. "Just kind of got up there."

Trevor Smith sent a fastball down the middle, and Freshcorn, sporting a protective cage on his helmet, said the only thing going through his mind was that this was his first at-bat as a college player.

He made it memorable.

He drove the first pitch he saw over the center-field wall.

Home run.

"I didn't expect to see anything like a home run because he had the injury, and coming back from that is kind of hard enough," said Tommy Toledo, his roommate and best friend. "But when he hit the first pitch, I couldn't believe it. The entire team was going nuts. Everyone knew he had been working hard. I was definitely proud of him."

Freshcorn singled in his only other at-bat that day, giving him a perfect 1.000 average with three RBIs.

He keeps the home-run ball in his dorm room and plans to give it to his parents. His older brother, Matt, was at the game, sitting in the outfield stands, and managed to beat out other Gators fans to the prize.

Now, all Freshcorn has to figure out is where to go from here.

"I mean after that, each at-bat is not the same," he said. "Expectations are high."