THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 25, 1996 TAG: 9604250561
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Never mind, they told Chris Elmore. All that stuff about the career-threatening condition the doctors thought he had in his pitching shoulder? Forget it, they said.
Wasn't there. Never happened. Mistakes were made. And oh, by the way, sorry we ruined your fall.
This spring, Elmore, Green Run High School's former star lefthander, is more than happy to forgive and forget the misdiagnosis he received at the University of North Carolina six months ago.
Back then, Elmore not only knew his freshman season at UNC would be scrapped, he believed his prospects as a college, pro or even beer-league pitcher could be marginal.
``I had a pretty rough fall,'' says Elmore, The Virginian-Pilot's Player of the Year last season. ``The doctor told me he hated telling kids this, but that my pitching days were numbered.''
Troubled by shoulder pain almost from the day he struck out 17 in Green Run's Group AAA championship victory last June - which made him 18-0 in high school - Elmore could barely throw over the summer, including at July's Olympic Festival.
Rest was supposed to be the ticket. But when Elmore reported to Chapel Hill on his partial scholarship, his arm balked once more.
Clouds were gathering. But the skies really darkened when a CAT scan Elmore had at the end of October revealed a congenital problem in his shoulder that appeared irreparable.
At least, it looked like a congenital problem.
``I even saw it myself. It was pretty easy to see,'' says Elmore, who was told his lesser ailment was a torn labrum. The real quagmire, they said, was a misaligned shoulder socket.
``The analogy they gave me was your shoulder's supposed to be like a golf tee and a golf ball,'' Elmore says. ``But my golf tee went around the whole sides of the ball. They wanted to repair the labrum tear, but they were telling me that they might not solve the abnormal problem.''
For three months, Elmore walked around with visions of life without wicked curveballs. He made the dean's list, but he feared never making the major league draft list.
Rest and rehabilitation were given one more chance to work. But when Elmore returned to campus after Christmas and began throwing, nothing had changed. Surgery for the torn labrum was scheduled for February. But even with that repaired, Elmore faced a 50-50 chance of ever again throwing pain-free.
Then something weird happened. When UNC orthopedist Timothy Taft went in with his arthroscope, he discovered Elmore's labrum and shoulder joint were perfect. He did find three bone spurs and a slight tear in Elmore's rotator cuff, but nothing earth-shattering.
The spurs were shaved but the small cuff tear was left to heal on its own, which apparently happens all the time. It would have been nice for Elmore to know this going in, but hey, good news is good news.
``I was really worried,'' Elmore says. ``My dream is to pitch later on in pro baseball, and I was kind of scared I wouldn't even get to throw in college. But they've told me that 85 percent of the people who had what I had done come out of it and throw without pain.''
And Elmore believes them. Again. He was redshirted and is in the middle of a rehabilitation period that should allow him to begin throwing in July.
So what was the deal with that original CAT scan?
``I guess it was a defect in the film or something,'' Elmore says.
Better the film than Elmore's future. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo FILE
Ex-Green Run star Chris Elmore thought his career might be ended by
what doctors believed was a congential shoulder problem.
by CNB