Santa Fe police officer throws out first pitch

Wounded in the Sante Fe High shooting, police officer honored by tossing first pitch

Wounded in the Santa Fe High School shooting, John Barnes was honored during the Astros game Sunday.

John Barnes rolled a bright new baseball in his left hand and eyed the pitcher’s mound in front of him.

In a few moments, the 50year-old police officer would toss out the first pitch in front of a crowd of 40,000 at Minute Maid Park on Sunday.

“I just want to get it to the mitt,” he said.

In the scheme of things, it was a small challenge.

Certainly nothing like the challenge of May 18, when Barnes and other police officers at Santa Fe High School tried to stop a gunman who opened fire on students and teachers early that morning. The massacre left 10 people dead and Barnes and 12 others wounded, a high school junior indicted for capital murder and the city of Santa Fe forever changed.

Certainly nothing like the feverish rush to the hospital after the gunman shot an approaching Barnes at close range with a sawed-off shotgun, severing his brachial artery and, in the

words of his wife, turning his elbow into “a jigsaw puzzle.” Barnes nearly bled out in the school hallway.

Certainly nothing like 33 days in the hospital after the shooting or his recovery since.

But it marked Barnes’ first appearance in public, the accumulation of weeks of physical therapy, a painstaking effort to strengthen the grip of his right hand and to regain the use of elbow, which remains immobilized with a brace and sling.

And besides, he’d played baseball in high school and college and wasn’t about to goof up the throw in front of thousands of people.

On Saturday, he’d tossed a few practice throws with his 14year-old son, Luke.

“For his left hand, it was pretty good,” Luke said, smiling. “He got it to me.”

Barnes, being a former baseball player, scoffed at the suggestion to throw underhanded.

“I’m not doing that.”

Behind home plate, Barnes’ wife, Ashley, and their children — Luke and 11-year-old Riley — watched players warm up and snacked on pretzels and blue cotton candy. More than a dozen friends and relatives sat elsewhere in the stands, there to show their support.

At 12:48 p.m., an Astros official waved him onto the verdant field. He stopped perhaps 20 feet from home plate, where Astros catcher Cionel Pérez crouched, waiting.

Barnes reared back, then let the ball fly.

It skipped once, then burrowed into Pérez’ mitt, as the crowd cheered.

Barnes stopped for a minute for photos with Orbit and Pérez, then walked back to his family.

It was game time.

Jon Shapley / Staff John Barnes throws out one of three first pitches.

Jon Shapley / Staff photographer Four months ago, John Barnes would have never pictured himself throwing one of three ceremonial first pitches at an Astros game. The Sante Fe ISD officer was given this honor for his role in protecting students at the school shooting on May 18.

Jon Shapley / Staff photographer John Barnes, the Santa Fe ISD police officer who was injured in the mass shooting, threw the ceremonial first pitch before a game Sunday between the Astros and the Seattle Mariners in Houston.