{"id":7479,"date":"2014-07-23T11:31:25","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T15:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=7479"},"modified":"2014-07-30T15:11:44","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T19:11:44","slug":"peewee-jay-overcomes-brain-surgery-to-get-back-on-the-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/peewee-jay-overcomes-brain-surgery-to-get-back-on-the-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Peewee Jay overcomes brain surgery to get back on the field"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

12-year-old Connor Elbaum and his father Mark collect baseballs from MLB players during batting practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur record is eight,\u201d said Connor. \u201cAnd we once got three in forty-two seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baseball was ingrained in Connor from an early age. Mark has spent the past fifty years around the game, and now coaches his son on the Aurora Jays Peewee team. <\/p>\n

At a record of 4-9-1, the Jays sit fifth in league standings. However, the team goes beyond what happens on the field. In 2013, the players and parents raised $22,000 for a team trip to Cooperstown, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. At the Toronto Blue Jays 2013 home opener, the team was on the field in uniform during the national anthems.<\/p>\n

While Connor spends most games at shortstop, he\u2019s also excelled as a pitcher, catcher, and centre-fielder. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s fast,\u201d said Mark. \u201cHe makes plays that a kid his age shouldn\u2019t make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark recalls a 2013 Ontario Baseball Association game in London where Connor pitched a no-hitter, struck out eight and batted 3 for 3. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s such an all-around player. He can do anything and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Connor\u2019s athletics were dealt a serious blow when he was only just beginning.<\/p>\n

Connor\u2019s complications began in 2009 when he started showing seizure-like symptoms. After countless tests and a number of years of medication, the Elbaums\u2019 neurologist was still not fully convinced that what Connor was experiencing were seizures.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Well if they aren\u2019t seizures, why are we giving him all this medication?\u201d said Connor\u2019s mother, Marisa. \u201cLet\u2019s dig into this a little more.\u201d<\/p>\n

More testing determined that they were in fact seizures, but they were all stemming from the same area of the brain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gave Connor options,\u201d said Mark. \u201cWe said he could keep taking his medications for the rest of his life, or the other option is surgery. He immediately shook his head.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until the Elbaums brought up a driver\u2019s license that Connor saw the upside of surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him, if he wants to go out with his friends when he\u2019s older or take a girl on a date and needs to drive, he won\u2019t get his license if he has seizures.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that, there was no question in Connor\u2019s mind to go ahead with the surgery. On April 3, 2014, Connor went under the knife for a right temporal lobe lobectomy.<\/p>\n

After the surgery, Marisa called Connor\u2019s recovery \u201cabsolutely incredible.\u201d He was released from the hospital after three days, and was off medication within a week. However, there was still a period of recovery for Connor to face.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t allowed to participate in any sports or physical activity,\u201d said Marisa. \u201cThat was the hardest part for Connor, not being able to be physically active. He went through it fast, although he might not say it was very fast for a twelve-year-old.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connor was back in the classroom two weeks after surgery, but was forced to miss recess. This allowed him the time to catch up on his schoolwork. <\/p>\n

And just five weeks later, Connor was given the medical clearance to get back into baseball. At a Peewee Aurora Jays game, he can be found wearing an unmistakable red helmet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how a lot of people have noticed there\u2019s something different, the kid with the red helmet,\u201d said Marisa. \u201cThen they hear the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it just happened to be a red helmet too,\u201d said Mark. \u201cI couldn\u2019t buy a black one or a blue one, the red one just stands out like a red flag to a bull.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connor hopes to get back behind the plate again this week as catcher, as he enters the late stages of his recovery process and can take the helmet off, if needed. <\/p>\n

But to the Elbaums, the helmet signifies an adversity that was faced and beaten.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll put it away and have it as a memento,\u201d said Mark. \u201cWe\u2019ll definitely be keeping it.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

12-year-old Connor Elbaum and his father Mark collect baseballs from MLB players during batting practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur record is eight,\u201d said Connor. \u201cAnd we once got three in forty-two seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baseball was ingrained…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/2014-07-24-08.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1WD","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 20:42:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}