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Season of change for police shooting victim
  
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Part one of an exclusive with the Examiner
By STEVE MARK
Seven months after being shot in front of his home by Bellaire Police Sgt. Jeff Cotton, Robbie Tolan remains in pain. Portions of a bullet are still lodged in his liver, and the scars from surgery feel fresh. His stomach constantly hurts. Any attempt at moving faster than a light jog causes Tolan’s system to feel out of whack.
Yet the worst, for Tolan, is not yet being able to comfortably perform the simplest mechanism he has known his entire life.
Throw a baseball.
“I’m trying to get my muscles back in the swing of things, but I can’t throw without pain,” says Tolan. “I’ve tried to motion throwing and hitting, but there’s still discomfort, so I just have to take it easy for a while.”
Even more painful for Tolan is that for the first baseball season since he can remember, he is a spectator and not a player. The former minor leaguer always dreamed of playing in the majors, and still does, which compounds Tolan’s anguish; he loves the game so much that now, he can’t bear to watch it. But he can’t stay away, either, which makes Tolan’s outlook on life even more frustrating and confusing. Many of his contemporaries play on the major league and collegiate level, making jealousy a factor.
“I’ve been to a few games, but it’s hard to watch,” says Tolan. “I have to keep my mind on other things, and that’s hard, too.”
Before the Dec. 31 shooting, Tolan had finished a short stint in Texas City with the Bay Area Toros of the independent Continental Baseball League, after being released from the MLB Washington Nationals’ farm system last March.
Tolan found a promising path with the Nationals in 2007, moving up the ladder in rookie and two class A teams in Vermont and Hagerstown, Md. Despite last season’s step backward in development, Tolan felt ready for another shot, somewhere in 2009.
“A lot of the coaches with the Nationals were setting up some tryouts and workouts for me with other teams,” says Tolan. “I would like to think I would have been on somebody’s ballclub.”
Tolan’s voice trails. “Then this happened…”
Those dreams have now been put on hold, perhaps forever. In the midst of physical therapy sessions, Tolan’s doctors have not ruled out the ability to play baseball again, but they haven’t promised an adequate physical recovery either. The uncertainty only perpetuates Tolan’s pain.
“The doctors are optimistic, but they also tell me it’s going to take a while,” says Tolan.
Tolan has dipped his toes back into the water by joining his father, former major league star Bobby Tolan, in coaching twice a week with Karl Young summer teams. The experience satisfies Tolan’s baseball hunger pangs and creates others all at once.
“It keeps me in the game,” says Tolan. “When spring training came around I was just miserable, but at least with this coaching thing I can at least be around the game.”
Tolan turns 24 this week and knows every tick of the baseball clock is against him. As he waits for the unknown limits of his physical recovery and the uncertain opportunity to play again, Tolan is the victim of human nature and, with the predictable impatience of youth, wants answers to his sporting life’s questions, now.
“If I had gotten a realistic shot, I could have been in the big leagues by the next couple of years,” he says. “I know to play the game right, keep my nose clean and put the blinders on. The talent level is there—I just needed a bit more experience and exposure, and I think I could have done some damage.
“Even in the hospital, there was never a time when I thought I would have to find something else to do. I’ve always believed in myself and that I would make a full recovery and come back to baseball.”
When he finally feels up to it and gets medical clearance, will Tolan give baseball another shot?
“Absolutely.”
Tolan is equally anxious for answers from the legal system. Tolan’s civil lawsuit against the city of Bellaire and Cotton is pending and not yielding an apparent resolution anytime soon. Harris County’s criminal case against Cotton (first degree felony charge of Aggravated Assault by a Public Servant) is weaving through the court system, and although Tolan is not involved with that case, he is inextricably linked to Cotton’s fate — multiplying the chances against any speedy closure.
“I just want it over with,” sighs Tolan.
He shakes his head and knows it won’t be over soon. Any of it.
(Next week, Tolan talks with The Examiner about the Bellaire Police Department and the weights and measures of the justice system)
Yet the worst, for Tolan, is not yet being able to comfortably perform the simplest mechanism he has known his entire life.
Throw a baseball.
“I’m trying to get my muscles back in the swing of things, but I can’t throw without pain,” says Tolan. “I’ve tried to motion throwing and hitting, but there’s still discomfort, so I just have to take it easy for a while.”
Even more painful for Tolan is that for the first baseball season since he can remember, he is a spectator and not a player. The former minor leaguer always dreamed of playing in the majors, and still does, which compounds Tolan’s anguish; he loves the game so much that now, he can’t bear to watch it. But he can’t stay away, either, which makes Tolan’s outlook on life even more frustrating and confusing. Many of his contemporaries play on the major league and collegiate level, making jealousy a factor.
“I’ve been to a few games, but it’s hard to watch,” says Tolan. “I have to keep my mind on other things, and that’s hard, too.”
Before the Dec. 31 shooting, Tolan had finished a short stint in Texas City with the Bay Area Toros of the independent Continental Baseball League, after being released from the MLB Washington Nationals’ farm system last March.
Tolan found a promising path with the Nationals in 2007, moving up the ladder in rookie and two class A teams in Vermont and Hagerstown, Md. Despite last season’s step backward in development, Tolan felt ready for another shot, somewhere in 2009.
“A lot of the coaches with the Nationals were setting up some tryouts and workouts for me with other teams,” says Tolan. “I would like to think I would have been on somebody’s ballclub.”
Tolan’s voice trails. “Then this happened…”
Those dreams have now been put on hold, perhaps forever. In the midst of physical therapy sessions, Tolan’s doctors have not ruled out the ability to play baseball again, but they haven’t promised an adequate physical recovery either. The uncertainty only perpetuates Tolan’s pain.
“The doctors are optimistic, but they also tell me it’s going to take a while,” says Tolan.
Tolan has dipped his toes back into the water by joining his father, former major league star Bobby Tolan, in coaching twice a week with Karl Young summer teams. The experience satisfies Tolan’s baseball hunger pangs and creates others all at once.
“It keeps me in the game,” says Tolan. “When spring training came around I was just miserable, but at least with this coaching thing I can at least be around the game.”
Tolan turns 24 this week and knows every tick of the baseball clock is against him. As he waits for the unknown limits of his physical recovery and the uncertain opportunity to play again, Tolan is the victim of human nature and, with the predictable impatience of youth, wants answers to his sporting life’s questions, now.
“If I had gotten a realistic shot, I could have been in the big leagues by the next couple of years,” he says. “I know to play the game right, keep my nose clean and put the blinders on. The talent level is there—I just needed a bit more experience and exposure, and I think I could have done some damage.
“Even in the hospital, there was never a time when I thought I would have to find something else to do. I’ve always believed in myself and that I would make a full recovery and come back to baseball.”
When he finally feels up to it and gets medical clearance, will Tolan give baseball another shot?
“Absolutely.”
Tolan is equally anxious for answers from the legal system. Tolan’s civil lawsuit against the city of Bellaire and Cotton is pending and not yielding an apparent resolution anytime soon. Harris County’s criminal case against Cotton (first degree felony charge of Aggravated Assault by a Public Servant) is weaving through the court system, and although Tolan is not involved with that case, he is inextricably linked to Cotton’s fate — multiplying the chances against any speedy closure.
“I just want it over with,” sighs Tolan.
He shakes his head and knows it won’t be over soon. Any of it.
(Next week, Tolan talks with The Examiner about the Bellaire Police Department and the weights and measures of the justice system)
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