LYNCHBURG, Va. – Luis Salazar has been through a lot of opening days in his 38 years of professional baseball and knew his 38th was going to be very different Friday night.
It came five weeks since the manager of the Atlanta Braves’ high Class-A Lynchburg Hillcats lost his left eye after being struck by a line drive in a spring-training game.
“It’s my passion, baseball, and being down here, tonight is going to be a very emotional night, a home opener,” he said a few hours before making his return to the dugout in uniform.
“To me, it’s another challenge,” he said, a bandage and clear glasses covering the eye socket that was shattered March 9. “They’re not going to take baseball away from me.”
Salazar, a former Chattanooga Lookouts hitting coach, was the last person introduced before the Hillcats’ game against the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, and the still-arriving crowd of about 2,000 fans mostly stood to welcome him.