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BRODEUR: Bethel's Slavick fights back from Tommy John surgery

BETHEL -- Tyler Slavick had exhibited early genius on a pitcher's mound, a third no-hitter to his name before a learner's permit. As a lefthander polished beyond his years, his mailbox was sure to be crammed with letters from colleges craving his rare services in a not too distant future.

Yet if pitching is indeed an art form, as it's so often elevated, the Bethel High hurler's erratic first throws in May 2010 following Tommy John ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction surgery a month earlier provided a humbling reminder:

Slavick was back in the finger-painting stage. And his comeback was off to an appropriately messy start.

"I almost hit a couple cars," said Slavick, 17, fresh from a throwing session at All- Star Baseball Academy in Brookfield last week, where he's trained from age 9.

A backwards Bethel cap topping his untamed brown locks and a smile fixed on his face, Slavick skimmed over the past with a dogged devotion to his future.

"It messes you all up psychologically," Slavick conceded, "but you've just got to fight through it."

Fight. Mentally and physically, Slavick -- who manned first base in his return season with Ray Turek 's Wildcats in 2011 -- has had to fight. A fight just to be the same again, and more fighting that he hopes will help him eclipse the talents that propelled him to a 5-0 record as a freshman on the 13-2 JV Wildcats of three seasons ago.

"I've got to work even harder, show (colleges) that I can pitch and Tommy John doesn't bring me down," Slavick said, a late-breaking two-seam fastball among the pitches he's attempting to reacquire. "(I have to) be better than I was before."

The scars beginning to fade on his sturdy, 5-foot-8 frame, Slavick can smile now with some of the darkest days any young athlete could ever endure behind him.

It was during another All-Star session when Slavick had thrown a pitch far costlier than any that sprayed wildly from his left hand in that initial post-op exercise.

Tommy John patients often fall into one of two categories when it comes to their injuries: those that experience a wearing down of their throwing elbow over time -- the "dead arm" effect, so to speak -- and those that make one fateful toss, often when shoulder fatigue causes overcompensation that causes precious elbow ligaments to snap like rubber bands.

Slavick fit into the latter group.

"I was trying to throw a curveball because I hadn't thrown one all day," Slavick said. "I throw a knuckle-curve and I finish really hard. I heard this pop in my elbow.

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