One thing I've learned while following Liam Hendriks as he dealt with non-Hodgkin lymphoma is that the language of cancer treatments is tricky. There was a lot of good news down the home stretch, especially when he underwent his fourth and final chemotherapy treatment and rang the bell afterward, but it was easy to get carried away and rush toward even better news with careless wording.
So I appreciated that Hendriks wore a "Struckout Cancer" shirt in his media conference with reporters at Guaranteed Rate Field on Wednesday. If he can use past tense, then so can we.
With Hendriks now turning his attention to a rehab stint in the minor leagues starting with Charlotte this weekend, he thanked reporters for maintaining discretion during treatment and opened the floor for questions.
He said he'd found lumps in his neck during the summer, but the formal, Stage 4 diagnosis wasn't made until December because blood tests didn't immediately show it. He said that
One of his answers agreed what Ethan Katz had suspected, in that Hendriks might've been dealing with it during the whole 2022 season.
“There was always the chance I pitched damn near all year with lymphoma in my system,” Hendriks said. “I’d like to think that was the reason I struggled to recover, and the end of the year I was damn near limping to the finish line. But yeah, that’s one thing obviously can come through. Who knows how much that actually affected me. We’ll find out when I get into — as long as Pedro (Grifol) is in here — four or five games in a row and move forward with that. I don’t think it helped. I think it definitely took its toll on my immune system. Only time will tell. As you know, I like to be available to throw multiple innings and go back-to-back and that was severely limited last year. Hopefully that was a contributing factor to it and we can move forward and get back to what I like to do, and that’s pitch every day.”
But even though he better understands the toll it took on his body, he said he's not going to take it any easier on himself should his old success not return to him quickly.
You can watch his entire address here:
Spare Parts
- Keynan Middleton always felt 'different' in baseball. He wants to provide hope through his story. -- Chicago Tribune
- Keynan Middleton strikes out 'cheater' Carlos Correa to clinch win -- Chicago Tribune
Because Keynan Middleton was a non-roster invitee who didn't have an inside track to cracking the 26-man roster on Opening Day, there wasn't a whole lot about him. Between this Shakeia Taylor column about Middleton and his postgame slam of Carlos Correa, I feel like I gained a better sense of the guy on Wednesday.
Russell Carleton ran the numbers and said that a designated runner might be worth something like 10 runs over 162 games, although watching Billy Hamilton since he returned to the 26-man roster.
The A's "binding agreement" for land in Las Vegas is contingent on the A's gaining legislative approval for a tax package, and apparently John Fisher has not done the legwork needed to secure those funds. There are only 34 days left in the session, and the speaker of Nevada's Assembly says there hasn't been any kind of "concrete ask."
The NLBM announced a "Pitch for the Future" campaign to create a new facility that would be triple the size of the current museum, incorporating the Buck O'Neil Education and Resarch Center that took over the YMCA where the Negro Leagues were established in 1920. As always, consider a membership.
