Player Loses Bid to Rejoin UCSD Baseball Team

SAN DIEGO — A judge has refused to order UC San Diego to allow a 22-year-old baseball player who suffered a brain injury during a game two years ago to try out for the team.

Adam Schwindt, a university senior from Rancho Palos Verdes, suffered the injury after being hit near the right temple by a line drive while pitching in an intrasquad game in September, 1989.

U.S. Magistrate Roger Curtis McKee, in a ruling published Wednesday, said Schwindt failed to show that an injunction should be issued against the school under the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

That statute says such institutions cannot exclude an otherwise qualified handicapped individual solely by reason of the handicap.

The judge did not consider Schwindt to be handicapped within the meaning of the act. Further, McKee said Schwindt could not “eliminate the risk of catastrophic re-injury.”

After he was hit by the line drive, Schwindt was conscious but reported losing feeling in his extremities before passing out. He later had emergency neurosurgery at Sharp Memorial Hospital and was comatose for 13 days.

Doctors have given differing recommendations as to whether Schwindt should be allowed to play baseball again.

Schwindt’s attorney, Richard J. Foster, said a decision on whether to appeal has not yet been made.