Blind boy takes the field for youth baseball team in Modesto

Jasen Bracy, who was diagnosed with cancerous eye tumors when he was 1 1/2 , survived harrowing rounds of chemotherapy before losing his sight three years ago.

The 9-year-old Modesto boy is a blind player on the Sonoma Dolphins youth baseball team.

Now, every swing of the bat is a victory over the cancer called retinoblastoma.

Every hit is a home run.

Sonoma Elementary School, where the Dolphins practice, is geared for special needs students, but Jasen plays on a coach-pitch squad with able-bodied teammates. It is his second year with the Dolphins.

“He knows how to get to first base, I can guarantee you that,” coach Roger Denton said.

When Jasen steps into the batters box, a coach counts 1, 2, 3 and tosses the baseball into the path of Jasen’s waist-high cut.

“I swing on 3,” Jasen said. “It feels pretty good when I hit the ball.”

Jasen follows the sound of clickers to run the bases.

The boy takes the field and melds into the teamwork of defensive baseball. At a practice last week, a teammate throwing grounders to Jasen, at shortstop, told him to move right or left to stay in front of the ball.

With his sister, Maria, standing behind him for guidance, Jasen stopped the grounder with his body, as a professional infielder will stop a hot smash. When Jasen gathered in the ball, fellow Dolphins called out “left side” or “right side,” telling him where to peg it.

As far as Denton is concerned, Jasen is no different from other team members. The coach likes to put him fourth in the batting order, which is known as the coveted cleanup slot.

“We let him play a bunch of positions,” Denton said. “He’s a good hitter. He doesn’t want to pitch yet. We are waiting for that for next year.”

The Dolphin players and their parents are familiar with Jasen’s story and accept him as one of their own. A game against the Dolphins can be an emotional challenge for supporters of the opposing team, however, regardless of the final score.

“Last year, the parents from the other teams were coming up to us and they were in tears,” mom Wendy Rivera said. “A parent said, ‘I can’t believe what an inspiration he is doing what you think is impossible.’ ”

Watching Jasen on the diamond sends one searching for a quotation from John Tunis, who wrote 1940s sports novels for children and thought amateur sports were about fun rather than winning. Tunis is one of the authors who talks in “No Cheering in the Press Box,” a book about classic sportswriters of the last century.

His most famous quotation: “There’s such a thin line between winning and losing.”

Battle with tumors

Jasen was last featured in The Modesto Bee in September 2011, as he prepared for experimental treatments in New York for the rare cancerous tumors in both eyes.

The treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center beat back the cancer for a time, and then it returned. During a procedure later at Stanford Medical Center, the drugs were infused into his veins too fast and the boy lost the vision in his left eye, Rivera said.

At one point, Jasen lost all of his hair and came close to dying during rounds of chemotherapy designed to keep the cancer cells from spreading. Today, the retina in his right eye is almost completely detached. The eye has some sensitivity if a doctor shines a light into it.

Jasen goes to Los Angeles for eye exams under anesthesia to make sure the tumors are not returning. The other three children in the family have no signs of the disease.

Rivera said her son played baseball at a local school when he still had sight. With the disappearance of the cancer, it provided a window for Jasen to get back on the field last year.

The parents talked with Denton, who encouraged them to bring him to sign-ups. “It is all about fun and games; come on out,” Denton said.

Jasen Bracy Sr., who played college football in Idaho, pitches to his son during the games. In one highlight last year, Jasen rounded the bases and scored by following the sound of the clickers.

The Dolphins won a few games last season and prevailed in a scrimmage Friday.

Jasen said he likes baseball pretty well, and is talking with his parents about football. The parents are carefully exploring that proposal.

Rivera noted that the family has an exercise to put themselves in Jasen’s shoes.

“We try once a month to blindfold ourselves to see what he goes through in daily life,” she said. “He never seems to stop amazing me. I can’t even sit through dinner. I don’t know how he does it.”

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 1:42 PM with the headline "Blind boy takes the field for youth baseball team in Modesto."