Looking around a baseball field, one can see the plates, other players, as well as how close these objects are.  Mike Stutzman, freshman, sees things differently: he is blind in one eye.      

            While playing baseball nearly five years ago, Stutzman foul tipped a ball and broke his orbital bone, the bone surrounding the eye, and nose.  Initially, Stutzman thought the swelling would subside and he would heal, and he was unaware this injury would cause him to lose his vision in his right eye.

            “I have a huge scar down my eye that’s blocking my vision.  You can’t really see it because it’s all in the back, but my retina is hanging by a thread,” Stutzman said.  “There used to be blood blocking my vision, but now the blood’s gone and it’s just a huge scar, so whenever I look there’s a huge blind spot.”

            Because doctors cannot surgically remove the scar, Stutzman remains unable to see out of his right eye.  He lost binocular visual cues as well as depth perception, which prohibits him from playing his former outfield position in baseball.

“I lost all of my depth perception, so I needed to teach myself that again with my left eye.  In baseball in the outfield, I can’t play it because a ball will go up and I’ll think it’s like 30 feet behind me but really it’s 20 feet in front of me, and I’ll just lose it,” Stutzman said.

Although Stutzman can no longer play outfield, he still plays baseball and is the catcher for the freshmen baseball team.  He uses his left eye to see balls that are coming from straight ahead and says many of his teammates are not aware that he can only see out of one eye.

“I don’t want people to feel like I have a disability.  I mean it’s not that big of a deal, but I just feel like I’m not going to go around saying, ‘hey, I’m blind in this eye!’” Stutzman said.

While Stutzman does not want to broadcast his blindness, he does feel that others should be more appreciative of their vision.

“Don’t take anything for granted. A lot of people take seeing with two eyes for granted, like it’s normal,” Stutzman said.  “Once something like this happens, you realize that you need it.”