Columbus East junior Caleb Martoccia delivers a pitch during a game this season.
Submitted photo
Caleb Martoccia doesn’t remember his first brush with death. He remembers very little about his second one.
Martoccia, who lives just southeast of Columbus, was pulling onto S.R. 7 the morning of Nov. 19 when he was hit by a truck. First responders pulled him from a burning car. The only items that survived were his schoolbag, phone and laptop in the backseat.
Fortunately for Martoccia, he survived, as well. The only injuries he suffered were a broken hand and a scraped up knee. The Columbus East junior was released from the hospital that night and returned to school a couple days later.
“I don’t really remember too much from the ride,” he said. “I just woke up, and I was getting pulled out of the car.”
Caleb’s mother Catherine Martoccia had left home at the same time as Caleb and headed toward Rockcreek Elementary, where she is a teacher.
“I had just gotten to my office at Rockcreek, and I got a call from CPD saying your son has been involved in an accident, and I’m going to let you talk to him,” Catherine said. “The police officer came to the hospital and said, ‘I have no idea how he survived that.”
Beating cancer
It wasn’t the first time Caleb had survived a scary ordeal. When he was 1 year old, he was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer of the connective tissues on April 28, 2006.
That same day, Catherine and her husband Dan took Caleb to Riley Hospital For Children for surgery because of a high risk that the aggressive and fast-spreading cancer would invade other parts of his body. Surgeons removed the cancer threat, and Caleb was pronounced cancer-free three days later.
Still, Caleb underwent six rounds of chemotherapy over the next six months. He finished those rounds in November 2006 and has been cancer-free ever since.
“It was a really rough time for him,” Catherine said. “It was good that he was too young to remember, but it was bad at the time because we couldn’t explain to him why it took eight of us to hold him down.”
At the time of Caleb’s diagnosis in 2006, doctors had seen only about 50 cases of rhabdomyosarcoma worldwide.
“It’s an aggressive, rare cancer,” Catherine said. “When it came up, Riley sent the pathology all over the world before they could decide on a path of treatment because rhabdomyosarcoma is so rare and one of the most deadly forms of cancers. That’s why it took so long.”
Caleb underwent chemo every week, and every fourth week, he had it for 8-to-10 hours at a time. At one point, his hair turned gray.
“He was very strong through it, but he almost didn’t make it because he had one of those rare side effects with the liver,” Catherine said. “Riley thought it was a miracle that he made it.”
Love of baseball
Caleb grew up playing baseball, both in Columbus and on travel teams. He had just finished his eighth-grade year in 2019 when the Olympians made it to the Class 4A state finals.
Caleb’s freshman year, there was no high school baseball season because of the COVID pandemic. But he still played travel baseball, and last spring, he was selected MVP of East’s junior varsity team.
This season, Caleb was primed for a big season both on the mound and at the plate for the Olympians varsity team until the car accident set him back.
“It was a long process coming back from it, a lot of physical therapy,” he said. “I thought I would be back way sooner than I was.”
Unfortunately for Caleb, the broken right hand did not allow him to grip a baseball tightly, and thus affected his ability to throw.
“Baseball is his life, and for it to be his throwing hand, he had to be just devastated,” Catherine said. “Dr. (orthopedic surgeon Cary) Guse sent him up to Dr. Lance Rettig in Indianapolis, and he was just amazing with him.”
Shortly after the season began, Caleb was able to throw again, but not pitch. He landed the center field job when senior Logan Christophel sustained an injury.
“It was (tough), but I fought back and got some opportunities when some guys went down with injuries,” Caleb said. “I feel like I did good in the outfield. My hitting has kind of slacked, but I think I’ll get it back.”
Caleb also got his hand strength back to the point that he was able to pitch late in the regular season. East opens sectional play against Bloomington North Friday night at Bloomington South.
This summer, Caleb plans to once again play travel baseball.
“I want to really improve on my hitting, seeing the ball better, getting good (at bats), not chasing out of the (strike) zone and improve my arm strength,” he said.
Caleb is hoping to play baseball beyond high school. He is leaning toward studying criminal justice.
“I’ve reached out (to colleges) a little bit, but this summer is the biggest time for it,” he said. “It will start picking up this summer, hopefully. I’m truly blessed to still be playing.”
And blessed to be alive following the cancer battle and, more recently, the car accident.
“They said he was lucky to survive it,” Catherine said. “They told me if he’s a cat, I don’t know how many lives he has left because he’s cheated death twice now.”
