WORCESTER—In baseball and in life, 16-year-old Aiden O’Connor has hit almost everything that’s been thrown at him.
The slick-fielding utility infielder earned a permanent spot on the varsity squad this spring with the Doherty Highlanders, one of just two sophomores on the team to do so.
Given an opportunity due to injuries, O’Connor jumped at the chance to showcase his talents. He started hitting well and never came out of the lineup. A versatile fielder, he was used at second base, shortstop, third base and even in the outfield.
“He’s kind of a jack-of-all-trades,” said second- year head coach Brian Sargent. “We’ll just throw him in wherever we can. He does a pretty solid job no matter where he is.”
O’Connor led Inter-High with a .500 batting average this season, including 14 hits and four runs batted in. He had three hits in a 12-7 win over St. Paul on April 23 and accounted for both of Doherty’s two hits in a tough 2-1 loss at Bay Path on May 11.
O’Connor also tacked on another multi-hit game with two hits in a 10-0 win against Burncoat on May 12.
His leadoff single in the bottom of the seventh inning against Tantasqua on May 21 set the table for a dramatic 3-2 walk off win in the final regular season home game of the season. O’Connor scored the game-winning run for Doherty (9-9, 4-2 Inter-High) on a sacrifice fly.
The journey to get where O’Connor is today as a baseball player and a young man, has been a long and challenging road for the last four and a half years.
O’Connor has always loved to play baseball and made many fond memories playing with his friends on the diamonds of Worcester’s Joe Schwartz Little League along Brooks Street.
What he didn’t love was the mysterious and troubling pain he often felt in his legs, hips and feet. His mother and biggest supporter, Lindsey O’Connor, wasn’t a big fan of it either. In the spring of 2021, the pain and the uncertainty of its cause eventually rose to a level where he had to stop playing baseball at just 12 years old. No little league season. No summer all-stars. O’Connor couldn’t even start sixth grade with his classmates when school began that fall at Forest Grove Middle School. He was understandably devastated and miserable.
Instead of the familiar baseball fields he grew up on, O’Connor was now spending a lot of time in exam rooms at Boston Children’s Hospital. He didn’t play baseball for two years and missed enough school days in the sixth and seventh grade that he needed the services of a home tutor two to three times a week to catch up on academics.
The doctors struggled to diagnose exactly what was going on, other than the happenstance discovery that he had a rare blood condition known as a capillary malformation. They tried various injections in addition to every kind of physical therapy imaginable.
“This kid could be a poster child for physical therapy,” said Lindsey, who has raised O’Connor as a single mother.
It continued to be unclear if the capillary malformation was truly causing the odd pain in his extremities. Without any definitive answers, Lindsey decided to take O’Connor to Massachusetts General Hospital for a second opinion. At Mass General, the medical team found that he had a torn labrum, the ring of cartilage that attaches to the hip socket, in addition to having a bone fragment stuck in his hip.
In 2023, O’Connor underwent a lengthy hip surgery to repair the torn labrum. He couldn’t walk for six to eight weeks after the procedure and the long recovery time meant yet another summer without baseball.
After the surgery, he worked constantly with physical therapists at Mass General just to get the ability to walk again. O’Connor had to relearn the proper way to switch his weight with each step before he could even think about how to tackle regaining the ability to run. The path back to baseball was literally a step-by-step process. Still lacking a full and complete diagnosis, O’Connor’s orthopedic doctor suggested he see a neurologist to address his lingering symptoms that include not being able to regulate his body temperature, significant migraine headaches and the sensation of pins and needles in his hands.
Last July, Mass General diagnosed him with small fiber neuropathy and POTS syndrome. Small fiber neuropathy is a nerve condition that damages nerves responsible for transmitting pain and temperature sensations and regulating automatic functions such as digestion and heart rate. POTS syndrome is a condition that causes an inappropriate increase in heart rate when standing or sitting up from a lying position.
In August 2024, O’Connor began undergoing monthly IVIG treatments (intravenous immunoglobulin). IVIG is an infusion process that delivers antibodies directly into the bloodstream to help fight infections and reduce inflammation.
Visiting nurses now come to O’Connor’s house once a month to administer the IVIG, which can take anywhere from eight to 12 hours to complete. On these days he has to stay home from school and refrain from any baseball activities. Through the help of IVIG and certain medications that regulate his pains and migraines, O’Connor and his mother have ultimately learned to cope with these health issues on a daily basis. They also meet with the neurologist from Mass General every six weeks.
But even with this treatment plan, there are some days when O’Connor experiences what he refers to as a “flare up”—he feels really hot and shaky, with possible migraines and pins and needles in his hands and feet. Despite these temporary setbacks, O’Connor and his mother continue to take it one day at a time, always working together.
“He doesn’t let anything that comes his way define him,” said Lindsey. “He’s done a good job at learning to listen to his body. It hasn’t been easy. We just try to really listen to his body and do the best we can to make sure he has the best quality of life. He truly is an inspiration, and he doesn’t let this tear him down.”
Although complex health issues have thrown some curve balls at O’Connor, he’s much better prepared to handle them now than he was four years ago. Using mind over matter, he’s accepted these tough realities as a part of life.
“It took a lot of work,” acknowledged O’Connor. “I have a mindset that I want to be like everyone else and be a normal kid that hangs out with his friends all the time. I just want to keep pushing myself.”
Mike Vigneux is a freelance writer in Worcester with more than 20 years of experience in the fields of municipal government, communications, and public relations. An avid fan of all sports, Mike enjoys telling the stories of local athletes and their teams. He holds two degrees from Clark University, a bachelor of arts in Communication and a master of science in Professional Communication. He can be reached at Mikevigs@gmail.com
