Arm condition hasn’t stopped Saugus’ Sturgis from playing softball

SAUGUS – Kelsey Sturgis says she was a big baby – about 10 pounds, she says -and therein lies the difficulty that greeted her birth.”When I was born,” she says, “I got stuck in the birth canal. The doctor had to pull me out by my right arm, and he tore all the nerves.”The verdict, once everyone discovered what was going on, was Erb’s Palsy – or, to be technical, brachial plexus paralysis.It’s defined as a condition that, mainly due to birth trauma, can affect up to all five of the primary nerves that supply the movement and feeling to an arm. It can recover fully without intervention, or may require surgical correction.The result, in Sturgis’ case, was that she couldn’t lift her arm higher than halfway. Her doctor told her she’d be able to perform normal functions, but she’d never play sports, or do anything that involved sophisticated use of her arm.So, of course, Sturgis is the starting first baseman on the Saugus High softball team.”I’ve been playing softball since ? forever,” says the junior first baseman. “Ever since I was old enough to play, I guess.”She may come by her love of softball, and her talent, naturally. Her sister, Kim, was a star pitcher for the Sachems a few years back, and “I’ve always been Kim Sturgis’ little sister. I kind of always looked up to her, so that was a good thing.”She never let the handicap affect her.”It never occurred to me that I couldn’t do things everyone else could do,” she said. “I adapted. I can move it. You’d never even notice it. Sometimes, teams don’t notice that I switch my glove.”She started doing therapy when she was still baby, and stopped when she was in the sixth grade.”I’ll never get full motion,” she says, “but if I kind of stretch it, I’ll get more motion.”But she doesn’t have a lot of strength in the arm, and if she wanted to play softball – especially for the varsity – she was going to have to solve that problem.”When I played in town, I would throw with my right arm,” she said. “I didn’t have good accuracy. I’d have second base, and have no accuracy.”It was my dad who suggested that I switch my glove,” she said. “He asked me if I’d ever heard of Jim Abbot (the left-handed pitcher for the California Angels in the 80s and 90s who only had one arm). I practiced until I learned to do it instinctively.”All right. We’ve solved that problem. Most of the time, she can handle throws at her position without worrying about making the switch. But there is the possibility of a rundown – a maneuver she says she’s experienced, and conquered.”It happened last year,” she said. “Sometimes, I can throw quickly with my right arm, and then I’ll switch with someone else and they’ll take over.”I can throw with my right arm, but it looks awkward,” she said. “It looks like I don’t know how to throw. I just find it easier throwing with my left.”Her best friends, Lauren Garchinsky and Cassie LaBella, also play on the varsity, and both of them encouraged Sturgis to stick with softball all through her youth.”They’d say I was good, and to keep my head up,” Sturgis said.”I really love (softball),” she said. “I never thought, when I was a freshman, that I’d make the varsity. I was really a big thing. When I got pulled up, it was like, ‘aw, geez, I really didn’t expect it.'”She wouldn’t have been devastated if she didn’t make the varsity.”If I was left on the JVs, I’d still be playing,” she says.Last year, as a sophomore, she was a designated hitter and an outfielder. This year, though, “we have a new coach (Bobbie Finocchio), and the weird thing is she didn’t know (the condition of her arm). She just kind of saw that I could do and put me out there.”But recently, she asked me what was the matter with it, and it was like, ‘oh, OK.”There are other obstacles. When she hits, she has to be conscious of dropping her shoulder, lest the pop the ball up. And when she slides, she has to be conscious of landing on her left side, so her stronger arm can support the fall.But off the field, “you’d never know there w