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Thanatharn's Drive Hasn't Slowed
by Marcia Smith, Orange County Register
May 10, 2007
Her mother, Toi, climbed down from her seat in the aluminum bleachers
at the 49ers Softball Complex on Saturday afternoon, wrapped her fingers
around a section of chain-link fence and called her daughter over from
the Long Beach State dugout.
"Oh, Panita," she begged in a whisper, "please don't slide
again."
Her white uniform stained orange at her knees and down her left leg, Panita
Thanatharn nodded just to ease her mother's concern. All out is the only
way Thanatharn plays softball, the game that four years ago almost left
her lame.
"Coming back is something I had to do," said Thanatharn, 24,
the sixth-year third baseman known as "Grandma" to her younger
teammates.
The injury forced Thanatharn to rethink ever walking, much less running,
jumping, playing or sliding again.
"It's incredible to see her now," 49ers coach Kim Sowder said.
"When she got hurt, nobody thought she'd play again."
Thanatharn's story began at the plate at Mayfair Park in the eighth game
of her sophomore season. Thanatharn was racing to beat out a Loyola Marymount
throw that never came.
"I saw the catcher, a big girl in front of the plate. I knew I had
to slide," she said.
Thanatharn launched herself cleats-first for the tying run. She felt her
left leg pinned by the catcher's plastic dagger-edge of a shin guard.
Her petite, 5-foot-2 body crumpled forward, her chest skidding across
the plate, her face scrubbing against the dirt.
She lay still but for her tears, hot and rolling, making small puddles
of orange mud beneath her cheekbones.
Two Long Beach State trainers rushed to her, shielding her eyes from her
wrecked lower body. Some fans heard the snap. One trainer cut off Thanatharn's
left sock, finding blood that dripped from her hands.
"Right away, I thought, 'Thank God my mom wasn't here to see this,'
" Thanatharn recalled. "She would've been in jail for attacking
the catcher!"
The trainers carried her off the field. Pitcher Meredith Cervenka rode
the ambulance with Thanatharn to Lakewood Memorial Hospital.
Emergency-room nurses shot her full of painkillers. In the haze, Thanatharn
saw her X-rays. She broke both lower leg bones (fibula and tibia).
"When can I get back on the field?" she asked doctors.
Four days later, she had the first of five surgeries. Her patellar tendon
was split, a titanium rod was inserted from her knee to ankle, two screws
welded bone to metal, a third screw was implanted in her left big toe
and pins were set in the second and third.
Doctors kept her in the hospital for 10 days. She was confined to bed
rest at her Chino Hills home for a month. She missed five weeks of school
and dropped all but two classes.
"It was easy to get down on myself," she said. "I couldn't
do anything. I would lie awake worrying, watching infomercials."
When she returned to campus, she needed crutches to get around for four
months, a walker for another two, and weekly physical therapy to remind
her body how to take a step.
"My friends called me 'Master P' since I had this noticeable limp
that made me walk like a gangster," she said. "It took a year
to walk, longer to run. I can't do either without hurting anymore."
Her mother pleaded with her not to return to the field but lost the fight
to keep Panita from the game she loved since she slipped on her big brother's
hand-me-down glove.
A three-inch scar rounds her left knee cap like the seams on a bright-yellow
softball. Her toes on her left foot have curled inward, making that foot
a half-size smaller than her right.
"Here's where they put the screws, and here's where my fibula popped
out," she said, rolling up her pants.
When she returned to the team in 2005, she was two years behind the game
she left as a starter batting .526. She was a reserve in 47
games in 2005 and '06, collecting just 15 hits in 80 at-bats.
"For two years, Panita stayed late to take extra batting practice,
and players stayed to help her with fielding," Sowder said. "Nobody
ever questioned her effort."
It still aches to plant her left foot in the batter's box before a swing.
But the cleanup hitter with a .291 average went 1 for 3 Sunday, singling
to left field in the 2-1 loss to UC Davis.
It still pains her to dig her left cleat into the infield. But the starting
third baseman with a .917 fielding percentage made a team-high five putouts
and four assists in the game.
It still hurts to run, to bear all 128 pounds down on the leg that sets
off metal detectors. But this season's 50-game starter sprinted home for
the 49ers' lone run.
Her regular season ends with Friday's doubleheader against Santa Barbara
and Saturday's Senior Day Game, also against the Gauchos. She is earning
her master's degree in kinesiology/sports management and planning a softball
coaching career.
"I feel the best when I'm out here on the field," she said,
leaving the field Sunday. "I belong here."
She does, comeback complete.
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