The cheers and applause and shots followed Parker Byrd as he walked toward the plate, so once he reached the batter’s box, he removed his helmet and tipped it.
It was the eighth inning Friday, with East Carolina en route to a season-opening, 16-2 win against Rider at Clark-LeClair Stadium, and Byrd — by pinch-hitting and eventually drawing a walk — became the first Division I baseball player to appear in a game with a prosthetic leg.
A boating accident in 2022 resulted in his right leg getting amputated.
Byrd needed 22 surgeries in 45 days, according to The Athletic.
But the infielder and right-handed pitcher gradually worked his way back, until he returned to a Pirates team that he originally committed to play collegiate baseball for.
“I couldn’t be more thankful to have the opportunity I had today,” Byrd said postgame, according to The Athletic.
Byrd left Scotland High School in Laurinburg, N.C., as the No. 328 overall prospect and No. 75 shortstop nationally — along with No. 20 and No. 2, respectively, in North Carolina — in the Class of 2022, according to Perfect Game.
But everything changed when he went tubing the summer before starting at East Carolina and, after falling off the tube, was struck by the boat’s propeller when he tried to swim back, per WHSV.
He left the scene in a helicopter, and his right leg was amputated below the knee, his mother, Mitzi, wrote in a Facebook post at the time.
She described everything as a “bad nightmare” that hadn’t ended.
Byrd “knew I was dying in the helicopter for sure,” he told WITN in October 2022.
Still, Byrd didn’t stray from his desire to play baseball for the Pirates.
“Just because I lost a leg, doesn’t mean I’ve lost hope, or I’ve lost my heart,” Byrd told WITN in October 2022, “So I’m just gonna try to do everything that I can just to get back onto the field.”
That happened Friday after East Carolina coach Cliff Godwin inserted Byrd into the lineup in the eighth inning.
Godwin recalled to reporters postgame that Jimmy Paylor — a veteran umpire — told the Pirates’ coach that he started tearing up during the “coolest moment” he’d ever experienced.
The first pitch to Byrd was a strike.
Then, three balls followed.
And after the fifth pitch from Rider’s pitch finished outside of the strike zone, Byrd flipped his bat toward the East Carolina dugout and jogged down the baseline.
He was replaced by a pitched runner.
And waiting for him by the dugout was Godwin, his teammates and more cheers in the latest step for a recovery that once seemed improbable but now had a storybook ending.
“It’s been a long journey,” Godwin told reporters Friday. “It’s one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had as a coach. He’s going to get some more [opportunities], but he’s worked his tail off. It was super emotional.”
Former Yankee Jim Abbott, who pitched in the majors with one hand and memorably threw a no-hitter in 1993, congratulated Byrd on X.
“Well done Parker, nothing can stop you!” he wrote.
