One of the most violent scenes in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypse is the fight between two Indians in the woods. One of them gets hit in the head with an axe and blood spurts in all directions. Baseball player Drew Robinson had similar consequences, only from a bullet to the head. The difference was that he did it to himself. It took Drew 20 hours to realize how much he wanted to live.
What’s going on? Why am I still here?” – sparked in Drew Robinson’s mind. The baseball player lay on the floor, covered in blood and flakes that had scattered across the room as he fell. Drew struggled to get up, waddled into the bathroom, grabbed a towel, but it didn’t do much to stop the blood splashing thinly from his head. He reminded himself of the Indian in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypse after the hunter had taken an axe to the head.
Drew’s next decision was to take a shower. On his way to the stall, he felt faint, slipped and fell. “Strange, I feel no pain at all,” the thought flashed before he passed out again. He woke up again about an hour later. He got up, leaning on the sink, and saw in the mirror a bloody zombie with a Halloween mask instead of a face. The guy didn’t know what to do next, so he decided to brush his teeth. “Funny thought, what a funny thought,” thought the baseball player, who had put a bullet in his temple with a gun a few hours earlier.
Drew had had a passion for guns since childhood. He imagined himself as a policeman saving the planet, or a bank robber, or a gangster. He once fainted when his neighbor Mr. Mitchell had to call an ambulance after 9-year-old Drew pointed a gun found in the garage at him. It was a well-made muzzleloader, but Mitchell was unaware of it.
Robinson’s parents often fought and took their anger out on the youngest of the three children in the family. Instead of an affectionate word, he constantly heard something like, “You’re getting in the way again!” Drew spent a lot more time with the pets (dogs and cats) for whom he stole food from the neighbors – it seemed to the kid that they didn’t finish eating. Once, tired of the lack of attention, he rode his bicycle naked down the street. Instead of trying to understand the problem, his parents punished him by confiscating his computer console for a month and, worst of all, barring him from his baseball team.
Robinson was in fifth grade when the long-weary parents finally divorced. Sister Brittney went to live with her mother, and Drew and his older brother Chad stayed with his father. Close companionship was reduced to watching the kids’ games together on Sundays at the baseball (the boys played) and basketball courts (Britney played there).
A couple of years later, the sharp and bright Drew became the top star of his hometown Las Vegas high school at the outfielder’s position. “He has terrific reactions and runs like he’s not touching the ground,” his high school coach, Joe Winter, admired the kid. The Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Angels competed for the talent, but Robinson chose the Texas Rangers. Drew received a $198,000 signing bonus, making his MLB debut in the spring of 2010. Two months later, life took another happy turn as the athlete proposed to his girlfriend Diane.
Things were going great, but an elbow injury ruined everything. Drew was afraid that downtime would affect his career, so he played a few games with the injury, which only worsened the situation. He needed an operation, then relapsed and Robinson sank. The lack of attention as a child – it seemed to the athlete that he had to do only the right thing without the right to make a mistake.
An unhealthy perfectionism forced Drew to reread his interviews endlessly for mistakes, worry about his hair on the court and envy the competition. The fear of being unneeded was reinforced by the fear of revealing myself to those closest to me and labeling my complexes. “I felt like I was flying into an abyss, and all attempts to hold on only made it worse,” Robinson lamented. He tried to restart his career with the St. Louis Cardinals, but failed, and after breaking up with his fiancée he contemplated suicide.
The frightening thought solidified into quarantine in the spring of 2020. His parents had gone to another city to help a pregnant Britney, so Robinson was left alone in the house. “One day I saw a piece by sculptor Thomas Le Roy called ‘Not Enough Brains to Survive.’ It reminded me that the heaviest weight we carry is the thoughts in our heads. I felt about the same way,” the American admitted.
Drew started going to the firing range and wanted to kill himself right there, but still decided to do it at home. The athlete bought a gun and thought through all the details. He wrote a note to his family, asked for their forgiveness, but a minute before the trigger was pulled he flinched and called Diane to ask for a meeting. The girl refused, and there was no turning back.
On April 16, a bullet entered Drew’s head and ruptured his right eyeball. It further fractured the nasal septum and exited above the left cheekbone, millimeters from the other eye. “One chance in a billion to stay alive after a wound like that. By some miracle the bullet didn’t hit any major arteries and cause catastrophic bleeding,” puzzled otolaryngology professor Tina Elkins.
Equally surprising to doctors is the time Drew spent unaided after the shot – 20 hours. He lost consciousness three times, and when he was turned on, he pondered whether to call 911. A persistent desire to live arose when the athlete picked up a family album and found a photo of himself at age 7 with a bat in his hand. “I remember the cops kicking down the doors and one of them saying after a while: “Seriously, is he still alive?”
The kid had four surgeries in the hospital, after each of which he woke up and enjoyed every little thing. He felt love for the blue blanket that warmed him, for every breath he took, for his family. Drew realized very clearly – his salvation lay in loving and sharing love. Regular conversations with a therapist convinced the baseball player of his willingness to change through communication – Robinson had remained silent for too long and thus allowed his disorder to progress.
“The doctor told me that I was at higher risk not just because of the illness. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 11 percent of American adults in quarantine thought about suicide. Suicidal ideation was on the minds of 26 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds,” the athlete said. He was 27 at the time of the suicide attempt.
Doctors saved Drew’s left eye and implanted a titanium plate in the right side of his skull with an implant to replace the eyeball. The injury resulted in loss of taste and smell, as well as occasional migraines. The guy considers these small things compared to the hell he’s been living in for the past few years. “I’m free now. Even though the bullet took away my eye, I can see much clearer than I could before with two,” Robinson glows.
In July 2020, Drew returned to practice – no longer aiming to become the best player on the planet, just testing himself on his ability to rock at a high level again. That fall he signed a one-year deal with the San Francisco Giants and became the second one-eyed player in American baseball after Wommie Douglas, who shined for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1950s.
The American is still learning about himself, and the diary helps him do it. It contains entries ranging from melancholy to upbeat, but they always end the same way. “I love myself and my life!” – the athlete writes.
Drew played the last game of his career on July 16, 2021, after which he took a position specifically created for him by the club. Robinson is responsible for the mental health of the players and the motivational component.
Sometimes bad thoughts come back. At such times, Drew goes to his room and picks up his jewelry box. He used to keep a gun in it, but today there lies the bullet that split his head open and changed his life. He takes it out of the box and gently rolls it between his index finger and thumb. Then he puts it back, laughs, and goes to brush his teeth. Sometimes it helps.
