Tellez plays on as his mom fights brain cancer
Pursing dream while loved one fights to live teaches Jays farmhand to ‘be a better person’
BUFFALO — On the inside of Rowdy Tellez’s left wrist, there is a new tattoo.
“Proverbs 31:25,” it reads in fresh black ink, an off-season addition for the Buffalo Bisons’ 23-year-old first baseman.
“‘She is clothed with strength and dignity and she laughs without fear of the future,’ ” Tellez explained in the dugout of Coca-Cola Field this week.
It is for his mom, Lori, who is battling cancer. After discovering a lump in her armpit, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma around December 2016. Little more than a year ago, she called from Tellez’s childhood home in Elk Grove, Calif., to tell her son she was cancer-free. But twice since spring training — once in March and once for 10 days in early July — Tellez has travelled more than 4,000 km home to be with his family as the cancer fought back. Today, the Toronto Blue Jays farmhand is rarely away from his phone. Every time he steps on the field — for 90 games this season, heading into play on Friday — he wonders: “When we get back, is my mom going to be alive?”
“Between 2017 and 2018 it’s taken a dramatic bad turn for my family with my mom,” Tellez said. “She was cancer-free as of, like, June of last year and now we’re working with probably a fatal form of brain cancer so we’re seeing a different change in all of us in the family and it’s affecting me on and off the field, for the better I would say. I know it’s a struggle to have my mom in the state that she’s in, but everything happens for a reason and I accept that.”
Tellez wouldn’t say he manages his emotions. He doesn’t get to the field and turn them off.
“It’s one of those things, you’re never going to get away from,” he said.
Last year, his first year juggling his job and his mom’s illness, he kept what he was feeling close to the chest, believing it to be the best way to cope. But this season, he has learned how to talk, how to communicate and, crucially, how to be vulnerable.
That word, vulnerable, is not one you hear often in the world of professional sports. Tellez knows that. He knows players expressing feelings can be dubbed “soft” and that fans sometimes think of their baseball-playing idols as superhuman, wealthy and untouchable and immune to pain or struggles. But when he says his mom’s illness has changed him for the better, he knows opening up was key to that shift.
“Being vulnerable isn’t a bad thing,” he said, sounding much more mature than his 23 years. “It allows me to be a better player, to listen better, to understand. It allows me to be a better person and that’s one thing I’ve tried and it’s been the biggest thing. My teammates and my coaching staff have told me: ‘You being more vulnerable has made you a better person, a better teammate.’ I’ve calmed down, I don’t get mad as often ... Having a bad game’s not always fun but it could always be worse. My mom fights every day for her life and doesn’t know if she’s going to see the next one.
If I get mad if I go 0-for-4, that’s pretty selfish of me.”
Last year, when he was trying to hold in his feelings, Tellez didn’t realize he had people in his corner willing to help him through this tough time. This season, he has connected with Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Rhys Hoskins, whom he grew up with — Hoskins’ mom, Cathy, died of breast cancer in 2009, when he was a sophomore in high school. He has leaned on Dee Brown, the scout who helped sign him in the 30th round of the 2013 draft, who, as Tellez puts it, has “lost all three of his moms.” And there’s manager Bobby Meacham, with whom he has a close bond. The two have been together for the past three years, spanning double-A and triple-A.
“We talk almost every day about it,” Tellez said of Meacham. “Anything from prayers to questions I have about the situation. Just a lot of things.”
While Tellez’s outlook has changed, his dreams have not. His goal is still to crack the big leagues and stay there, despite a few years of ups and downs in the minors.
After hitting .297 with the double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats in 2016, putting up 23 home runs and 81 RBIs in 124 games, Tellez came into spring training in 2017 as one of the Jays’ top 10 prospects. In the wake of Edwin Encarnacion’s departure and before Justin Smoak broke out with an all-star year, many believed Tellez could make his major-league debut that summer.
But Tellez, dealing with this mom’s recent cancer diagnosis on the side, struggled to replicate that success at the triple-A level, slashing .222/.295/.333 with six home runs and 56 RBIs in 122 games. He has since dropped to No. 30 on the Jays’ prospect list, according to MLB Pipeline.
Tellez is well aware he didn’t play well then, and admits to be frustrated “non-stop” in 2017, something he has tried to get away from this season.
“I learned a lot about last year and I’ve really incorporated that into how I live my life and how I play now,” he said. “It’s trending in the right direction.”
Not including Friday, Tellez has a more comfortable .271/ .341/.430 batting slash line with 10 homers and 41 RBIs. He feels he’s been hitting the ball hard consistently and all over the park, and that he is better at the plate than his stats may indicate.
Fielding is always something he will have to work on, Tellez said, but he has a slew of people — Meacham, Jays third base coach Luis Rivera, Smoak and Jays shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, among others — who have helped him improve that part of his game.
“I’m going to work on every aspect of my game but defence is something people always fault me for, saying it’s not good, I’m a defensive liability, but I think it’s getting better every year, as long as I keep working on it,” he said.
In between the work and the worry, Tellez is trying to keep the game of baseball in perspective.
“I’m just here to help the team win and have some fun,” he said. “Can’t be mad that we get paid to play a game that kids do ... we’ve played this our whole lives and now we’re getting paid to do it so you can’t be frustrated about something like that.”