The Rocky Mountain Vibes walking miracle

Days after he was born, Rocky Mountain Vibes pitcher Brock Begue had a stroke. Doctors didn’t think he would be able to walk.

The stroke left Begue at the mercy of intense seizures which proved difficult to control.

“One time they took me out to Michigan to this special priest,” says Begue. “He gave me my last rites there because they thought I was only going to live a couple more days after that.”

But the seizures stopped two weeks after he was born and Begue was able to come home from the hospital. There was just one problem: he lost most of the feeling on the right side of his body.

In fact, he can’t feel the baseball hitting his glove on his right hand.

“I just have to watch it the whole time to make sure it’s in my glove,” he explains. “Once I see it in my glove I’ll squeeze. It’s just been a routine I’ve had my whole life.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, Begue pitches with his left hand.

“When I heard that story I just couldn’t believe it,” says the Vibes pitching coach Michael Schlact. “Both from understanding what it takes to even be able to function and be able to do things that other people do every day. And that’s not even the pitching side of it. We get to say to everybody what an example [he] is of perseverance and dedication and all of that but also the heart and the grit and everything that goes in to what he has to do.”

Schlact says Brock has a great shot of pitching under the lights in the big leagues.

“It’s what every kid dreams about,” says Begue. “I mean how many people can say they ‘Oh I’m playing in the major leagues’? Not many people at all. For me to get that chance for everything I’ve been though in my life is incredible.”