🚨🙏 **12-YEAR-OLD NEW JERSEY BASEBALL STAR COLLAPSED ON THE FIELD — NOW HIS FAMILY SAYS HE’S STARTING TO FIGHT BACK**

Xavier Taylor was just warming up.

A 12-year-old from Maple Shade. A kid who lived for baseball. Walking back toward the dugout at Fellowship Columbia Bank Field on May 26.

Then an errant throw hit him in the neck.

He went down.

His father, a retired firefighter, ran to him on the field. Xavier went into cardiac arrest. He was airlifted to Cooper University Hospital.

That was four months ago.

For weeks, the community held vigils. The Ben Franklin Bridge lit up blue. Teammates laid bats outside their doors. Strangers raised more than $100,000. His little brother threw out a first pitch in his honor.

Doctors told the family they might never reach this point.

Now they’re saying something different.

Xavier is showing signs of awakening. Small neurological responses. Moments that weren’t there before. His father says he hears them.

He is still on a ventilator. There is still no final prognosis. The exact damage from that one throw is still being watched, day by day.

But the boy who collapsed in the dirt before a youth game is starting to answer back.

His family never stopped believing he would walk out of that hospital. That he would pick up a bat again.

A freak accident. One loose ball. One second.

What else was missed in those first minutes on the field?