D.J. Peterson is a baseball survivor

In Peterson’s first at-bat, the right-handed López had thrown him all four-seamers and sliders. Anticipating another slider on the 0-1 pitch, Peterson leaned over the plate. When López surprisingly threw him a two-seamer, Peterson was caught completely off guard.

“I froze,” he says.

The pitch smacked him square in the left side of his jaw.

Peterson spit his tooth out on home plate. Clinton’s athletic trainer rushed to the scene. Peterson could not talk, could not move his mouth. Fortunately, in a crowd of very few people, there was a dentist on-hand. He, too, rushed to home plate, briefly examined Peterson and announced, “He needs to go to the hospital!”

So they put Peterson on a cart and then in an ambulance, which took him to the Mercy Medical Center, Clinton’s general hospital. X-rays were taken, and it was quickly determined that Peterson would need help that Clinton’s hospital could not provide. His jaw had been shattered, his gum punctured.

Alvin Davis, the former AL Rookie of the Year known as “Mr. Mariner,” just so happened to be in Clinton that day as a roving instructor. He rode to the medical center to be with Peterson.

“The doctor said what he was seeing was consistent with what he sees when people are in car accidents and hit the steering wheel or dashboard without a seatbelt,” Davis says. “That’s how serious it was.”