For Tampa Bay Rays prospect Darin Downs, climb back to the mound is steep

Do you know where you are?

He hears the question and understands its intent. He has just been hit in the head by a line drive that radar guns measured at 103 mph, and now the team trainer is waiting for his response. He tries, but Darin Downs is unable to answer.

Do you know what day it is?

The problem is not his memory. He recalls the pitch leaving his left hand and returning in an instant. The ball hit above his left ear and ricocheted into the camera well near the third-base dugout as he fell to one knee. People were rushing to him even before an umpire could call time.

Do you know who this is?

He is in the clubhouse now, and his fiancee, Christy DeFelice, stands, with tears in her eyes, and prays he will respond. He wants to talk. He tries to tell her about the pain, nausea and fear. But as his brain swells and blood begins to pool inside his skull, Downs has lost his ability to speak.

And so the young man enjoying the greatest summer of his life does not answer.

For several long days, no one has any real answers.

• • •

Darin Downs will finally make it to Tropicana Field this evening. Not as a big-leaguer. No, that dream is still to be determined. Downs instead will make an appearance to accept an award as the Most Valuable Player for the Rays' Class A team in Port Charlotte.

As a prospect, Downs is difficult to pin down. His numbers this summer — a Florida State League-best 2.00 ERA — suggest he is a pitcher with a future. But his age — he turns 25 in December — suggests his time is growing short.

Maybe the best way to explain it is that Downs is a survivor. Every step forward has been met with a hard shove backward. He was drafted in the fifth round out of Boynton Beach and got more than $300,000 to sign with the Cubs in 2003, but he took more than five years to rise above the low minors. He has been promoted and demoted, traded and ignored. His career seemed to be going nowhere until this summer.

For four glorious months, Downs was the pitcher he always thought he could be. He went 12-4 with the Charlotte Stone Crabs and, in early August, was called up to Montgomery (Ala.) for his second shot at Double A.

And so it was, one month and one day ago, that he was on the mound in Birmingham's Regions Park. It was the bottom of the fifth, and Montgomery was losing 2-0 when Downs gave up a one-out walk and a single. The count went full on Christian Marrero, and Christy, sitting near the scouts behind home plate, was hoping the next pitch would not be ball four.

Downs threw a fastball, and Marrero's line drive came screaming back toward the mound. The ball hit Downs flush on the side of the head, and an entire ballpark seemed to shudder. Montgomery trainer Lee Slagle was practically out of the dugout before the ball came to rest.

"I've had guys get hit before," said Slagle, who has been a minor-league trainer for 16 years, "but nothing quite like this."

Barely two years earlier, Double-A coach and former major-leaguer Mike Coolbaugh had been killed when hit by a similar line drive while coaching first base in Little Rock, Ark. Such moments are rare, but remain an indelible part of the game's history.

Slagle was joined by a doctor from the crowd, and they began asking Downs the questions typical of someone who has suffered a concussion. It was clear Downs understood what was being asked, but he was incapable of responding.

Eventually an ambulance arrives, and Downs is whisked to St. Vincent's Hospital in Birmingham. A neurosurgeon is called at home and summoned to the emergency room. Before the doctor arrives, Downs begins vomiting blood. Soon, the right side of his face is paralyzed.

"Before the neurosurgeon got there, I was doing pretty good. I was trying hard not to cry," DeFelice said. "Then he starts giving me this never-ending list. He's got a fractured skull. His brain is swollen. He's bleeding internally. He's got epidural fluid leaking. That's when I really started to lose it. He said the brain function that controls his speech had been bruised, and there was a chance he might never talk again.

"I was like: 'I don't care about that. We can live with that. We'll learn sign language. We're getting married in a few months. Just tell me he's not going to die.'

"And he wouldn't say that."

Surgery was discussed but put on hold. They would wait until the following morning and run more tests. DeFelice was given a room at the hospital to spend the night but hardly slept between her fears and the calls from friends and family.

"Every time the phone rang," she said, "I was afraid it was the neurosurgeon telling me he had died."

In Palm Beach County, Patti Downs had her own fitful night. Darin's mother was preparing for her first day as a high school math teacher when her stepdaughter called. She had been listening to the Montgomery game on an Internet broadcast and heard the announcers describing the play. Patti talked briefly to Christy but hadn't yet gotten the diagnosis.

It was not until early the next morning when she was in her class that Christy's mother reached her with the news.

"You hear those words — skull fracture, swelling, hemorrhaging — and you fear the worst," she said. "At that point, I wasn't fit to be in a classroom. I went to my principal's office and explained it to her, and she was very gracious. They took care of my class and let me stay in the office while I made phone calls. By 11 o'clock, I was on a flight to Birmingham."

For more than two days, Downs remained in the intensive care unit. The swelling and bleeding initially got worse but finally began to subside. He began to make verbal sounds, if not actual words. Nine days later, he was released from the hospital and flown to Palm Beach on a medical charter.

His speech has gradually returned and almost all signs of the incident have faded. He has just begun driving again, and he may soon begin light exercising. He has every intention of being back on the field when spring training arrives because he believes he has been given a gift.

"When I was leaving the hospital, one of the ER (nurses) told me I shouldn't have survived," Downs said. "They never said anything like that before because they didn't want to scare me. But they said the way I was recovering was not normal. I was recovering faster than I should have.

"I look back, and I think I was really lucky. It was a fluke accident, but I think I'm blessed to be here today."