From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is My Unsung Hero, stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

My Unsung Hero is my therapist.

They said, it's okay.

I still love you.

You're still my best friend.

So if she hears this, I just want to say thank you.

Today's story comes from Dan Roach.

Dan was born with a severe cataract that left him mostly blind in his right eye.

Growing up, he was self-conscious about it and often avoided making eye contact.

When he was 15, he played on a baseball team.

He was a solid player in the field, but at the plate, he kept missing the ball.

About halfway through the season, we were heavy betting practice,

and the coach watched me take 15 or 20 cuts. I missed a lot of them and then he held

up his hand to stop the pitcher and he walked over to me and he said, you're closing your right eye

when you swing. I kind of shrugged at him and I told him I couldn't see out of that eye anyway,

but he waited a couple seconds and then he said, try hitting from the other

side. So I walked into the batters box for the lefties and my teammates took it as a joke. They all

scoched in closer in the infield. But I surprised them and I surprised myself by hitting the first pitch

and then probably the next dozen too.

And what astonished me even more was that I saw the ball hit the bat, which I hadn't

known could happen. And by the season's end, it wasn't actually humiliating. I think it was one of the few times throughout those years when I felt

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