Baseball: Crohn's can't quiet Grayslake Central's Moe

Surely, Coby Moe, scarred but not scared about a disease he will live with forever, would rather talk baseball.

Maybe about the gem he pitched for his travel team in Cincinnati that summer nearly two years ago. Not about how he gave new meaning to "gutting" out a performance. Fluids had leaked into his abdominal cavity, and two days later he was in surgery.

Surely, the future Big Ten pitcher would rather talk about his Grayslake Central team. Not about the team effort that started with his dad making a middle-of-the-night phone call in a hotel room to a teammate's dad who's a doctor, who highly recommended an immediate trip to the ER.

Not that Coby remembers much about that night, other than the pain in his abdomen was "40-50 times worse" than any stomach flu that he thought he might have had in the past.

Living with Crohn's disease is tough for Moe. Talking about it publicly is equally uncomfortable for the senior who graduates high school Thursday. But then, Coby Moe knows he's Coby Moe. Athletic director's son. Big, strong kid. Looked up to my teammates, classmates, teachers and future GC ballplayers because of his athleticism and likability as a person. Northwestern bound.

So, nearly two years since his life changed forever, the pitcher is delivering. He's opening up about his medical condition.

"I probably blocked out close to 80 percent of it," Coby says of the days, weeks and months following his surgery in the summer prior to his junior year. "I think, initially, every time something would come up related to (the Crohn's), subconsciously, I would think I was going to go through the same things over and over again."

Standing nearly 6 feet 4 and thickly built, Moe barely resembles the kid who two years ago struggled to gain weight. It almost seemed like a mystery. An athletic kid was tired all the time, Brian Moe, Grayslake Central's AD, says of his son.

Clarity finally came that one July night in Cincinnati. Coby and his Slammers travel baseball team were playing in a tournament. Coby had been having stomach pains off and on. Two days before, Brian Moe remembers Coby feeling great. The hard-throwing righty pitched in the morning and then played a doubleheader the next day. That Thursday night, three Slammers teams went out to dinner and then headed back to the hotel.

Around 1 a.m. Friday, Coby throwing up in the bathroom, waking up his dad. Brian Moe then made the best decision of his life. He called Mark Chyna, a doctor and Libertyville resident whose son was a Slammers player.

"I woke him up at 1:30 or 2 a.m.," Brian Moe says. "He came over, checked out Coby and said, 'You may want to take him to the ER.' "

Done. After a CT-scan, Coby was in surgery by 5 a.m. Brian called his wife, Robin. Life had just delivered the couple's baseball-playing son a curveball.

"They removed about 4 or 5 inches of where his small intestine and large intestine meet," Brian says. "He had been leaking food from his intestine into his abdominal cavity. The doctor said If I had waited until the morning to get him in, he probably would have gotten sepsis and passed away.

"I was like, 'Thank God I woke up Chyna.' "

Coby remembers little, just that he slept a lot. Before surgery, after surgery. But he wasn't home-free. After he and his dad drove home to Grayslake a couple of days later, with Coby sprawled on a air mattress in the back of the van to keep him as comfortable as possible, his incision from the surgery developed an infection.

He spent more time in the hospital but, fortunately, did not need more surgery. Officially diagnosed with Crohn's, Coby was prescribed the medication Humira. To this day, he takes a self-injection once every two weeks, alternating thighs as entrance points.

Surprisingly to Coby, he was cleared to play basketball his junior year. This past season, he played basketball again and was one of the Rams' better players.

Baseball-wise, the NU signee hasn't disappointed. In fact, with his stronger frame this season - at 215, he's gained about 40 pounds in the last year - he's been more dominant than ever, posting a 6-2 record and 0.65 ERA in 42 innings with 65 strikeouts. He's pitched 3 shutouts, including a no-hitter, and is even batting .455 with 32 RBI.

"Last year, after he had lost the weight, I really felt he was worn down at the end of the year," Grayslake Central coach Troy Whalen said. "We couldn't throw fastballs by guys when we wanted to. This year, his innings are down a little bit. We've monitored that a little bit closer, but he's fresh. He's getting stronger."

For a kid who's spent too much time in hospitals, that's the best news.

"It sounds (crazy) to say that we were in Cincinnati and he almost died but it really couldn't have worked out any better," Brian says. "He had a great surgeon."

Coby agrees with his dad. Had he not gotten to the hospital immediately that night, he might be here.

"I understood what was going on and I figured it all out," Coby says. "I'm thankful for being back to where I am today. It's something that in the moment it just didn't seem like it was ever achievable. I think I definitely am lucky. Would I have liked it for it to have happened differently? Probably. If I had gone to a doctor sooner, would they have been able to diagnose it then? I'll never know."

Coby verbally committed to Northwestern in late August of last year and signed a national letter in November. When NU pitching coach Josh Reynolds learned of Coby's Crohn's, his priority was that the Evanston school could provide Coby what he needed to stay healthy. As a bonus for Moe, his doctor, Stephen B. Hanauer, "the Crohn's expert," Brian Moes says, works out of Northwestern Medical Center.

"What I was telling all the coaches," Coby says of the college coaches who were recruiting him, "was, 'This is who I am, and if you're not going to accept me for who I am, then that's not the place for me to be.' "

Brian Moe has learned his son is even more special than he realized.

"He's a much tougher kid than I ever gave him credit for," Brian says, smiling. "He impressed me a ton throughout the process. He was leaking fluids into his abdominal cavity and (two days before his surgery) he pitched into the sixth inning - 1 hit, 1 run. We were a 17U playing an 18U team. It was all smoke and mirrors. He had like a 79 mph fastball. He battled."

Coby Moe will keep battling.

Now, who wants to talk baseball?