from the New York Times
March 6, 2000
SPORTS OF THE TIMES
By HARVEY ARATON
TAMPA, Fla. -- It was a jarring, sad sight, the first time Trey Hillman spotted D'Angelo Jimenez, a familiar face, except it was encased in a halo brace and screws were embedded in his head and neck.
Jimenez was crossing the street here at the Yankees' spring complex when Hillman, his manager last season at Columbus, called out to his former shortstop and raced over to greet him.
"It was the first time I'd spoke to him since the accident," Hillman said, "and what I wanted to know was how he was dealing with it, mentally."
"I am so lucky," Jimenez told Hillman, who was immediately convinced that Jimenez was surviving quite well, considering the fracture of the second vertebrae and the overwhelming odds that his season was over.
It was going to be his first full year in the major leagues, as the Yankees' utility infielder, but then came a fateful drive on Jan. 24 and an ill-advised turn and the next thing Jimenez knew, his career had taken a wrong turn, too.
He never did remember the details, how his Acura Integra smacked into a small bus. Jimenez had apparently been trying to pass on the Duante Highway, connecting Santo Domingo with the northern part of the Dominican Republic. His friend in the passenger seat had told him the lane was clear, and he steered into the other vehicle, lost control, flipped over.
A second friend trailing in another car helped remove him from the wreckage, through the shattered windshield. He was dazed, but the doctors at the local hospital found no apparent damage. They told Jimenez's friend to take him home.
"My friend said, 'You're O.K., let's go,' " Jimenez said. "I stood up and my left arm was, like, numb."
He contacted the Yankees. They flew him to Tampa, where his injury was diagnosed at St. Joseph's Hospital. Jimenez's name, penciled in as the replacement for Luis Sojo, was -- for this season -- erased. Jimenez, at 22, became yet another reminder of the strange and devastating terms of vulnerability that have enveloped these Yankees the last few years, even as they dominated their sport.
George Steinbrenner's team used to be the home office for controversy; now it deals more with calamity, and we don't mean the 0-4 exhibition start (after yesterday's 6-2 loss to Houston) that has to have the Boss talking to himself -- for the time being, anyway.
If it hasn't been Joe Torre's cancer, it has been Darryl Strawberry's drug use, or illness and death within the players' families or in the Yankees' extended family.
"I could've been paralyzed, or dead," Jimenez said, knowing that only centimeters kept him from becoming another tragic twist of Yankee fate.
He is still a startling sight, sitting stiffly in the clubhouse at Legends Field, as the players all around him dress and enjoy the lightness and chatter of early spring. Jimenez said he feels fortunate if he gets a full night's sleep. He can't exercise because he is not supposed to sweat. So as much as he can, he avoids the cloudless Florida sky, waiting for the halo to come off sometime this month, for the doctors' permission to get on with his life.
They have all but assured him of a full recovery, he said. Trey Hillman, basing his prognosis purely on intuition, said, "If it's medically possible, D'Angelo Jimenez will bounce back from this."
He has known Jimenez since his second year in the Yankees' organization, making the managerial climb through the minors along with the 6-foot, 194-pound shortstop who hit .327 last season in Class AAA and earned a September showcase in the Bronx.
Hillman shook Jimenez's hand on the day he left Columbus, told him he was ready after working so hard on versatility, improving his defense at second and third base. What Jimenez has always had going for him beyond physical skills, Hillman said, was the pure instincts of a ballplayer.
"Unfazed," was the word Hillman volunteered. "He knows how to play, so I wasn't surprised that he went up to the majors and did what he did."
The 8 base hits in 20 at-bats and the smooth fielding did not foretell anything more than a spot on Torre's bench this season. A ticket is a ticket, though; that was all Jimenez wanted.
"I have a soft spot when it comes to D'Angelo because I have seen how hard he's worked," Hillman said.
He explained how difficult it was not to have a special affection for a young Dominican who has social and cultural challenges that can obscure his fundamental ability if they go unmet. A 37-year-old Texan, Hillman said he has never been to the Dominican Republic, but when he heard the news, he could imagine the accident scene in the Dominican, then picture the shock and sadness on Jimenez's face when the doctors in Tampa gave him the debilitating news.
Then Hillman looked up one recent day and there Jimenez was, in that awful brace, crossing the street, but soon telling him, "I think I can play in July or August."
D'Angelo Jimenez, he realized, didn't think of himself as the latest in a run of Yankee misfortune. In that moment of impact, when he realized what might have been, he actually considered himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
