BOSTON -- Jake Peavy vouches for his health, saying he is fully recovered from the precedent-setting shoulder surgery that took nearly a year out of his career, from July 2010 to May 2011, not to mention the rib injury that cost him six weeks this season.

As for his eyesight?

"Well, I'm legally blind without my corrective lenses," Peavy said Thursday. "If you see me going around and I don't have glasses, I will fall off this little platform right here. I can't function without them."

Pitch without his contacts?

"It would be a scary moment if I did that," he said.

Peavy said he cannot have laser surgery, apparently for hereditary reasons, and even with corrective lenses, his eyesight can be improved to no better than around 20-40.

"You guys will see in games, there will be times where I don't see the catcher very well, especially in low light conditions," he said.

There have been times Peavy's catchers have placed tape on their fingers so that he can see signs. There was a game in Houston in 2006, when Peavy was with the Padres, that the problem came to a head.

"I thought we were going to have to go to smoke signals," Padres catcher Rob Bowen said.

Shortly thereafter, Peavy began wearing new corrective lenses that made a dramatic improvement in his eyesight, but it will never be perfect.

***To read Gordon Edes' column on Peavy's Red Sox introduction, CLICK HERE.