The Man in the Boy Taps New Power : Baseball: La Serna High’s all-CIF shortstop willed himself back to form after a horrible car crash. Watching it all has helped his father, who was more seriously hurt.

It is hard to picture the narrow-faced, teen-age shortstop and the 37-year-old man, whose pale blue eyes and passion for baseball the boy had inherited, lying terribly injured beside a West Texas highway six months ago.

Jeff Ferguson, 16, who is back playing shortstop, and John Ferguson, who is getting around with the help of crutches, sat at the dining room table in their La Mirada home last week, talking proudly of each other’s comeback.

“It’s been a rough road,” said the older Ferguson, who was in a coma for eight days after the family pickup truck flipped twice in November.

It may take three years for his right leg to heal, but he tries not to complain too much. “Four doctors told me it’s a miracle I’m alive,” he said.

His son, who had made all-CIF as a sophomore last year at La Serna High School in Whittier, dislocated the joints in his pelvis. He was told that he might never play baseball again.

But after a painful period during which he could hardly walk, he made a sudden, startling recovery and rejoined La Serna’s team this spring. His father, when finally able to leave his bed, attended some Lancer practices.

“They’d come up together and hug before Jeff would take the field,” La Serna Coach Vern Brock said. “Then his father would sit in the sun.”

On June 2 in Anaheim Stadium, young Ferguson was at shortstop as La Serna won the CIF Southern Section 3-A championship. His father, a brace protecting his leg, was in the stands.

“That day we finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel,” said John Ferguson, wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed the title that his son’s team had won.

It was Nov. 26, a warm Sunday morning at 8:30, when the accident occurred on Interstate 20 near Monahans, Tex.

The Fergusons had been returning from a Thanksgiving visit to Asheville, N.C., where John Ferguson had lived until, at 16, he moved to California, where he attended Bell High School.

With them in the pickup were the people who share their La Mirada home--Kelli Carlson, 23, Ferguson’s fiancee, and Frank Carrasco, 20, who is John’s nephew and Jeff’s cousin.

John Ferguson and Carlson were asleep in the back, Jeff was asleep in the front. Carrasco, the only occupant wearing a seat belt, fell asleep as he was driving. Police estimated that the vehicle was traveling 60 to 70 m.p.h.

“When he ran off the road, it woke me and I yelled,” the older Ferguson said. “He tried to correct, but . . .”

The vehicle fishtailed for 600 feet. On the first roll, John Ferguson was thrown out of a window onto the grass median. On the second roll, his son went out the windshield. Carlson and Carrasco received only minor sprains.

“I found John 150 feet away,” Carlson recalled. “He was bleeding badly. Frank stayed with Jeff. A truck driver who had been behind us called the paramedics.”

The Fergusons were taken to a hospital in Monahans, where John stayed three hours before being transferred to a larger hospital in Midland. He had internal injuries, a collapsed lung, a ruptured eardrum, a broken jaw, broken ribs and a broken leg, into which a 17-inch rod was inserted during nine hours of surgery.

It was more than a week before he regained consciousness.

Jeff, meanwhile, was still at the Monahans hospital, unaware at first of his father’s fate: “I thought I was worse off, then they told me what happened to him, and I was scared.”

Jeff went home six days after the accident. John Ferguson stayed in the Midland hospital for 17 days, then flew home. He was 50 pounds lighter because a broken jaw had limited his diet.

In mid-December, the father was reunited with the boy he has coached in Little League, has always played ball with and whom he said he has never had to discipline for anything more serious than than failing to clean up his room.

“Tears were everywhere,” Carlson said. “It was a special moment. They are best friends.”

Jeff Ferguson returned to school after Christmas vacation and contemplated his baseball future.

“I knew I’d play again, but I didn’t know when,” he said. “I could barely move.”

Early in March, he picked up a bat and faced Brock, who pitched to him.

“I swung and hit the ball, but it hurt so bad,” Jeff said.

He threw down his helmet and slammed the bat against the backstop.

“It went through my mind that I wasn’t going to play for a long time,” he said.

His father, who played baseball at Bell and later in a semipro league, said: “I was trying to tell him, ‘No big deal, you’re just a junior,’ but he wouldn’t accept that. He wouldn’t quit. I’m proud of him for that.”

After about 10 days filled with uncertainty and depression, the 5-foot-11, 170-pound player went to Joel Matta, a Los Angeles pelvic specialist who recommended rehabilitation that included riding a stationary bicycle, swimming and jogging in a pool.

Brock made his spa and pool available to Jeff, who also worked out 1 1/2 hours a day at a health club. Within two weeks, he had improved dramatically.

“It was like one day he couldn’t do anything and the next day he was at 75%,” Brock said.

Ferguson was soon fielding ground balls every day.

“There were days on the field when you were not sure if his back was hurting,” Brock said. “He was kind of lethargic, but he never said anything. Then his friends would say he had been up all night because his dad was hurting.”

The Friday before spring vacation, Ferguson was back in the starting lineup.

“He was the best defensive shortstop I saw all season,” Brock said. “And his mental toughness was one of the reasons we won. He wouldn’t let us lose.”

He also batted .360.

“Considering the injury,” Matta said, “I think he had a rapid and complete recovery.”

“You go through life and take things for granted,” said John Ferguson, who has had to close the machine shop he owned in Santa Fe Springs. “For 2 1/2 months, I couldn’t get out of bed by myself. Something like this makes you think that hitting a baseball or owning your own business are not that important. It’s being healthy and happy.”

When Ferguson returned from the hospital, he talked with his distraught nephew.

“I told him it was an accident, that no one was to blame and that we all have to go through this,” he said.

But Carrasco, a music store manager, said last week: “I blamed myself for a long time. It was hard to see my uncle go from being a vibrant person to someone crippled and in pain, and thinking I might have ruined my young cousin’s baseball career. I would hear my uncle scream during the night, and I had bad dreams.”

Six weeks ago, his uncle again broke his leg turning over in bed.

Sensing resentment in the others, Carrasco said he began to shy away from helping out around the house.

“In the last month, we’ve opened up to one another,” said Carrasco, who again is helping Jeff and Carlson with cleaning and grocery shopping.

Carlson, a sales manager, cut her hours at a woodworking company to four a day for 2 1/2 months so she could help at home. “Kelli’s held everything together,” Ferguson said.

John Ferguson realized how much his world has brightened while watching his son help La Serna beat Tustin, 1-0, in the recent title game.

“It was like we had finally made it by pulling together . . . the family, our friends, Vern Brock,” he said in his dining room.

Tears, which have come easily the last six months, started to come again.

He wiped his eyes, looked at his son, smiled and said: “He took me to a Dodger game the other night. It was neat to sit there and have Jeff go get the Cokes and hot dogs.”

The shortstop, who said he has a 3.2 GPA, is hoping for a pro career, but may attend college first.

John Ferguson plans to move back to North Carolina, where he feels at home. “I’ll work with my cousins in a general store, fish and take life in the slow lane,” he said.

And try to forget about Nov. 26, 1989.

His son, though, prefers being reminded.

“It makes me try harder,” said Jeff, who has inscribed, under the bill of his baseball cap, that date.