Michael Neustifter's Incredible Comeback Story

Former Oklahoma State baseball player Michael Nuestifter has one of the more incredible comeback stories in all of sports. Unfortunately, due to coronavirus, he'll have to wait a little bit longer before getting back onto the diamond.

Unfortunately, it's not often that an Oklahoma State Olympic sports athlete, or even former athlete, gets written about in a national publication. There's the occasional athlete that will get written about once they go pro, but that's about it.

Well, that's not the case for former Oklahoma State infielder Michael Neustifter, who transferred to North Greenville University before the start of the 2019 season.

Neustifter was featured in Thursday's Sports Illustrated's Daily Cover, an article by Tom Verducci that details his road back from nearly losing his eyesight. This is such an impressive article and I highly recommend taking some time out of your day to check it out.

Neustifter's incredible journey began on Feb. 15, 2019. In the previous three games, he had got 0-for-8 with three strikeouts, something that he never really had a problem with while he was in Stillwater.

During his sophomore season, Neustifter hit .299 and was named Second Team All-Big 12 during bit of a down year for the Pokes. They finished the season 31-26, with the final game coming in the form an 11-1 loss to the NCAA Regional host Stetson.

Neustifter wasn't just in an early-season slump, he was struggling to even see the ball. Literally.

Michael and his mother, Angela, would travel to see several doctors and specialists over the next couple of weeks trying to get an answer to his sudden loss of vision.

Unfortunately, every doctor and specialist they went to gave them the same answers: they couldn't find anything physically wrong with his eyes. All but a specialist in Nashville who diagnosed Michael with visual snow syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that affects vision, hearing and cognitive functions in which there's no cure or procedure to fix it.

“That was a real blow after leaving that doctor,” he says. “I thought I played my last baseball game. I could probably live a somewhat normal life with what I had. Unfortunately, I play a game where the eyes are probably the most important tool.”

“It made sense,” Michael says of the diagnosis. “It was hard to gather it in, but it made sense.”

After trying to get back into the batting cages and hoping that he could improve, Neustifter was forced to take a medical redshirt, effectively ending his season.

“That was like throwing in the white flag,” Neustifter says. “That was probably my lowest point. Once that happened, it all kind of hit me. ‘Oh my gosh, I might never play baseball again.’ ”

Now, for the amazing part of the story.

After calling dozens and dozens of doctors and specialists around the world, Angela Neustifter was at a routine checkup with her family physician when she described Michael's situation.

“I broke down and told him what was going on,” she says. “He prayed with me. Then he said, ‘I want you to call this doctor, Dr. Charles Shidlofsky.’ Of all the research I had done over several months, I did not know this doctor. It turned out he was five miles from our home.”

Michael returned home to Carrollton, TX where Dr. Shidlofsky performed 20-30 test and came to the realization that Neustifter wasn't suffering from visual snow syndrome, but rather an undiagnosed concussion he suffered on Feb. 2, 2019 during a hard slide into third base.

Over the next 10 weeks, Neustifter began working on getting back onto the diamond and was back to full health by the beginning of the 2020 season where he hit close to .300 in the first seven games.

Unfortunately, his baseball career was once again cut short due to the coronavirus, but he was hitting .315 and slugging .641 when the season stopped.

Those numbers are incredibly impressive, season cut short or not. After his medical redshirt, and being granted an extra year of eligibility due to the pandemic, Neustifter still has two years of eligibility remaining, but he's decided to start his pro career early.