His name appears on baseball cards, box scores and major league scoreboards, but this Javy Lopez is not a professional baseball player. If it wasn’t for a freak accident three years ago, though, he could have been.

Lopez is a senior on the Harvard baseball team. He is the team’s leadoff hitter and starting left fielder. He also is completely blind in his left eye.

During his freshman year, in a preseason practice, Lopez was pitching soft toss on the sidelines when he was struck in the eye by a line drive off a teammate’s bat. Lopez was only 30 feet away from home plate, two-times closer than the pitcher’s mound.

In an instant, a world-class high school recruit with major league aspirations was transformed into an inpatient at the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary without his sight or the ability to walk.

It was a horrific turn of events for Lopez, who one year earlier was mulling offers from the University of Miami (Fla.) and Florida St. to play baseball. He had even considered going straight to the majors from high school. But when Harvard Coach Joe Walsh called Lopez and asked him to make a recruiting trip up north, the high school superstar fell in love with Cambridge.

“I visited during two February days and the weather was beautiful,” Lopez said. “I remember asking my hosts, ‘Is this how it always is up here?’ I’m not sure if Coach Walsh talked to them before hand, but they told me ‘yes.’ So, that sealed the deal. I thought, ‘this isn’t so bad.’”

After discussions with his parents, Lopez decided that Harvard was the place for him. Though Miami and Florida St. are perennially ranked in the top 10 in the country, Lopez believed that obtaining an education was a top priority.

“In the back of my mind, I knew that getting an education gave me a fallback option in case I got injured and could not play baseball,” Lopez said.

Lopez planned on attending Harvard for two or three years, hoping to improve his draft prospects and then leave early to play professionally. As a high school senior, dozens of scouts attended Lopez’ games and approached him after games. An Atlanta Braves official told Lopez that if he declared himself eligible for the draft out of high school, Atlanta would likely take him in the fifth or sixth round—giving the Braves two Javy Lopezes.

Throughout high school, Lopez’s life revolved around baseball. At Westminster Christian, Lopez won a national championship and two state titles. Westminster is the same school that produced Alex Rodriguez. Lopez, in fact, became personal friends with Rodriguez, who still returns to Westminster every offseason as a conditioning coach.

Groomed to be a star, Lopez was devastated when he heard his doctor’s diagnosis of his eye injury.

“The head of optometry told me I would have the motor functions of a 65-year old man,” Lopez said. “He ruled out baseball as an option and just wanted me to focus on learning how to walk again.”

At first impact, Lopez was completely blind. The massive swelling caused total blackness in his left eye. Lopez broke seven bones around his eye and needed immediate reconstructive surgery.

Within a week, the swelling went down and Lopez began his recovery, working on regaining his balance. Without sight in his left eye, Lopez had virtually no depth perception and struggled to walk without tripping. He was forced to move out of Matthews Hall—where he lived on the fifth floor—because he would trip over the stairs.

Lopez progressed quickly, but doctors and even his parents doubted he could ever play baseball again.