Greg Wagner ’07 sets on the mound. He kicks his leg and throws a cutting fastball on the outside corner. In a split second, the left-hander moves his glove onto his throwing hand, prepared to field a batted ball. It’s a feat tough enough for a major league player, but this professional hopeful does it all with one hand.

Wagner, a Gaithersburg native and honors student in Communication, suffered a brain aneurysm at the age of 3, leaving him with reduced motor control in his right side and a lack of balance in his right leg that has improved with training.

“My right side is neurologically damaged, and when I pitch, I don’t have fine motor control to catch with my right hand,” Wagner says as he motions with his left hand. “I hold a glove with my right hand and put the glove on after the pitch, enabling me to throw and field with my left hand.”

He began pitching at age 9. In 1996, at age 11, he perfected the technique, modeled on retired major-league pitcher Jim Abbott, who has only one hand. That same year, pitcher and current Orioles executive Mike Flanagan gave Wagner a pitching lesson that touched the heart of catcher and coach Elrod Hendricks.

Hendricks remembered the boy with the aneurysm a decade later and invited him to throw in the Orioles bullpen.

“I thought it was my chance. But two weeks after he called me, Hendricks was fired, and two months later he died. My chance was gone, just like that.”

Wagner didn’t give up. After being repeatedly cut by a high school coach that referred to him as handicapped, he resigned to pitching in his backyard. He played Green Terror baseball during his sophomore year only.

This past summer, when Wagner tried out for the Orioles, his pitch sailed at 83 mph – fast, but not fast enough. The setback only encouraged him to practice harder, and he dropped 50 pounds to a lanky 205. Now, four months later, Wagner is pitching in the high 80s and expects to be consistently in the 90s early next year. He is sending DVDs showcasing his skills to scouts across the country and has already gotten a callback from the Atlanta Braves, eager to receive a disk.

“I’m hoping it will be the chance I need to get somewhere and have something go right,” he says. “One thing I believe is that if a team gives me one chance and lets me pitch one session, they will see what I can do.”