Chance Veazey will always remember that pitch.

Fastball. Low and inside.

He'll always remember what it felt like, too, when his bat connected with the ball.

"The best feeling in the world," he said.

Veazey looked up to see the ball soaring high over the right-field fence, slamming off the top of the scoreboard with a most satisfying thud. It was only a practice game at the University of Georgia, the chance to get in some fall swings before the season began in the spring, but the rush of hitting one out of the park still surged through his body.

"That's the way you want to go out," Veazey said, his face revealing both sadness and satisfaction.

Two days later, he was paralyzed from the waist down when his scooter slammed into the side of a car. In all likelihood, he'll never walk again, much less return to the sport that was such a big part of his life.

Here was a scrappy 19-year-old who seemingly had it all. A scholarship to Georgia, one of the country's top college baseball programs. A starting job waiting for him at second base in his freshman season. The dream of someday making it to the big leagues.

It was snatched away before he got a chance to play his first college game.

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Veazey was one of the shortest guys on the team at 5-foot-9, but he made up for his lack of size with guts and guile. Like he always told his dad, baseball was much more of a mental game than a physical game.

"I just wanted to be the little fireball of the team," he told The Associated Press during an interview in his room at the Shepherd Center, one of the country's leading facilities for spinal injuries. "In your face baseball. I wasn't going to back down from anyone."

Veazey arrived on the Georgia campus this past fall and made an immediate impact during a series of intrasquad games. He batted over .300 while striking out fewer times than anyone on the team. He played solid defense and showed he was capable of stealing a base.

Sure, it was only practice. Things would get a lot tougher when Veazey was going against other Southeastern Conference schools. Still, coach David Perno was convinced that this little spark plug of a player from rural south Georgia had what it took to be a starter in his very first game.

"He played the right way," Perno said, "and he played for the right reasons."

On Oct. 28, two days after that last fall scrimmage, after rapping out three hits including the aforementioned homer in his final at-bat, Veazey was studying for a psychology test with some friends and teammates at a learning center on the Georgia campus.

He finished up about 10:30 p.m. and hopped on his scooter for the short ride back to his dorm room.

He never made it.