CHAPEL HILL - Whenever North Carolina reliever Colin Bates goes through a tough stretch on the pitching mound, he reaches into his back right pocket to touch his rib. Yes, his rib. "It reminds me, 'Don't forget what you've done to get here,' " the redshirt freshman said, showing the curved, 3-inch bone that used to reside under his right clavicle. "Plus, it's part of my body, I don't want to leave it behind."

A year ago, the Illinois native worried that he might have to leave his pitching career behind -- that two surgeries to repair a blood clot in his throwing shoulder might affect the velocity and accuracy that had him dreaming of a pro career.

But as the No. 2 Tar Heels (36-7) prepare to play third-ranked Florida State (34-5) in a three game-series at Cary's USA National Baseball Training Center starting tonight, Bates is "throwing even better than before," said Tar Heels pitching coach Scott Forbes. Bates is a key reliever on a young pitching staff that ranks No. 1 in the country in ERA (2.07) and strikeouts (444).

"For us, [success] was never a big question," Bates said of his team's pitching dominance. "Of course, it was for everyone else, because we were unproven in games, because we lost [Andrew] Carignan and [Matt] Danford and [Robert] Woodard and Luke [Putkonen] ... . In the fall, we could tell we had some definite talent, it was just proving it."

Bates, though, had more to prove than anyone else.

Last fall, he started to sense that something was wrong when he realized he was throwing 85-86 mph, instead of 90-92 -- the speed that impressed Forbes when he noticed Bates at a Myrtle Beach, S.C., summer-league game. On top of that, his velocity started decreasing through scrimmages, instead of increasing like it did in high school.

Then he realized that his right arm was more swollen than his left. At first he figured that he was lifting weights incorrectly, until his right hand briefly went numb during a fall scrimmage game.

So he approached the team's trainer, Terri Jo Rucinski, held up both arms, and said, "Terri Jo, what's wrong with me?"

Having suffered blood clots in both shoulders herself, she immediately knew -- and rushed Bates to the emergency room.

"I know it's a complete long shot, but when you hear 'blood clot,' you have to think about your life,'' Bates said. "There's only a tiny percent that you're in jeopardy, but still, that was scary."

By 10 o'clock the following morning, Bates was in the operating room to remove the clot, which had formed from so many years of throwing. If he wanted to pitch again, he would have to have another, painful, complicated procedure that involved removing his top rib, cleaning out the scar tissue and grafting a vein from his right thigh to his shoulder.

"When he was in the ICU, I did have that one initial thought of, 'If this doesn't work, what do you tell a kid who's wanted to be a baseball player since he was 4 years old?' '' Colin's mom, Diane, said. "But that crack [of worry] closed pretty quick, because I knew with all the support around him and hard work [from him], he could get through it."

The Bates family turned to Dr. Robert Thompson, a vascular surgeon at Washington University in St. Louis who had performed the procedure on major leaguers Aaron Cook and Kip Wells.

He warned Bates that when he woke up, it would feel like he'd been hit by a bus.

"But it was more like a train,'' Bates said.

For several days, he couldn't move. For seven months, he couldn't pitch.

He cheered from the dugout as UNC returned to the College World Series, then, per NCAA rules, had to sit in the stands in Omaha, Neb., as the Tar Heels lost to Oregon State for the second straight season.

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