Corey Koskie has been roughhousing with his kids again. He no longer becomes nauseated when he sends out an e-mail. He can now watch entire movies on his giant HD TV without getting a splitting headache.
In fact, Koskie feels so good, he’s starting to get the itch. He’s going back into the gym this month and maybe, just maybe, he’s going to go to Fort Myers and work out with the Minnesota Twins.
“I still don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’d like to play for Canada in the World Baseball Classic,” Koskie said, from the living room of his home in the suburbs of the Twin Cities last week. “I’m going back into the gym next week to see if I can go through a full workout. If, by the end of the month, I’m comfortable there, I’ll go to Florida just to see if I still have my bat speed, can still throw.
“I’ve talked with the Twins and they said they’d let me use the facilities in Fort Myers in early February. Nobody has given me any indication they’d look at me in terms of a contract or anything like that and I haven’t asked. I just want to see if I can still play. I mean, I’ve been out of the game for 2 ½ years. That’s a long time. I’ve just been hanging out with my kids for two years. I might not even want to play again. But I want to see how it feels.”
Manitoba’s greatest baseball player, the young hockey goalie from Anola who grew up and made it to baseball’s big leagues, has not played a game with his last team, the Milwaukee Brewers, since way back on July 5, 2006. That’s the day Koskie, now 35, was involved in a terrific play with Brewers shortstop Bill Hall. The two combined to make a miraculous catch of a flare to short leftfield off the bat of the Reds’ Felipe Lopez – a play that made the highlight reels all over North America.
Since then, however, Koskie has been a mess. As the former Blue Jays third baseman tried to make that spectacular over-the-shoulder catch, his legs slipped out from under him and he slammed his shoulders against the outfield grass. He didn’t hit his head, but he did suffer the same symptoms a car accident victim would get from a severe case of whiplash.
Brewers’ doctors confirmed he had post-concussion syndrome and he hasn’t played a game since. In fact, for more than two years, Koskie couldn’t watch much TV without getting sick. He couldn’t sit at his computer without getting dizzy. Walking into a big venue like Rogers Centre or the Metrodome in Minneapolis would leave him disoriented and prone to panic attacks.
“It was so frustrating,” Koskie said. “I’d feel good and then my head would start to spin. There was no explanation.”
It was kind of a sad, unfortunate way to end a career. Especially when one considers that at the time, his eighth season in the majors, he was playing his best baseball in two years. The Brewers formally released in 2007. It appeared as if he was done.
But in the last couple of months Koskie seems to have staggered out of the fog. The nausea doesn’t dog him. There are no more anxiety attacks.
“I’m going to find out if I can play again,” he said. “But if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.
“And I’m not even sure I want to play again. I’m not sure I’m ready for the pressure of two-out, two-on bottom of the ninth. But I’m going into this giving everything I have, but expecting nothing in return.”