Matt Szczur’s 1-in-80,000 long shot saves a toddler’s life
For more than a year, she was a mystery to Matt Szczur.
In fact, he didn’t even know her name.
But now and forever, the Cubs’ jack of all trades will remain part of Anastasia Olkhovsky thanks to the bone marrow he donated that saved her life.
Sports fans f i r s t met Anastasia and her family via an ESPN “E:60” feature in 2013. Anastasia was the leukemia-stricken child of Ivan and Marina, a couple from the Ukraine that was afraid to close their eyes at night for fear their first born might not open hers again.
In late 2009, Anastasia was 15 months old. Szczur was 20, a two-sport athlete at Villanova opening the eyes of Major League Baseball and NFL scouts alike. He was a wide receiver on his way to leading the football team to the FCS championship and being named the title game’s MVP after a 270-yard, two-touchdown performance when t he national bone marrow registry called.
Szczur had j oined the registry at the urging of Villanova football coach Andy Talley, who since 1991 has urged his players to be tested as possible bone-marrow matches.
Szczur was a match. A 1-in-80,000 long shot.
The end of football season and the beginning of baseball season had come and gone by the time Szczur received another call, informing him that the condition of the potential recipient had worsened. That they needed his bone marrow ASAP.
That t he exhausti ng, three-hour procedure was performed a month before the Cubs picked him in the fifth round of the 2010 June draft mattered not to Szczur. That he wasn’t sure about the side effects of neupogen, a drug he took to increase blood-stem cells, wasn’t a deterrent. That his spleen could have ruptured wasn’t a problem.
“Did it put his baseball career in jeopardy? Who knows?” Talley said. “The guy is a hero. Matt was very adamant about doing it. He knew he could miss the rest of the ( baseball) season, which tells you what kind of person he is.”
Even though the little girl was a stranger and it would be a year before he talked to her and her family because of c onfi denti a l ly r ul e s , her story hit close to Szczur’s heart. One of his best friends had leukemia.
In May of 2011, Szczur learned that the transplant had been successful. The national registry provided him with the name of the recipient and both sides agreed to meet via Skype. With the help of a translator — the Olkhovskys speak only Russian — Szczur and his parents, Marc and Kathy, were able to see and hear the answers to their questions reveal themselves. The virtual meeting was captured on video by ESPN.
Anastasia, with blond hair and glasses, told Szczur she loved him. She blew him a kiss. Ivan and Marina called him family and expressed their gratitude over and again.
“It was emotional f or me,” Szczur said. “I saw that she was 100 percent and she was healthy and she was a normal kid living her life.”
“I had seen the emotion from her parents, thanking me for helping them. I can’t put it into words. I knew that I was going to help her out and I knew she was going to survive. Just something inside me knew it.”
Szczur’s dad said t he families last connected on Sept. 22. ESPN plans to air an update of its “E:60” story soon.
A rock rests on a shelf in Szczur’s locker, a symbolic memento from his family’s old restaurant that reminds him of “The Stonecutter,” the folk tale of a humble tradesman who becomes envious of others’ wealth, but ultimately l earns to appreciate his place in the world.
He touches it before every game. It allows him to appreciate the grind of baseball.
And grind, Szczur has done. He spent most of last season on a two-way ticket between the big leagues and the minor leagues.
All the while, he kept pounding away, day by day, until becoming a permanent, as-needed fixture this season for a franchise trying to win its first World Series since 1908.
For a guy who was used to playing every day in two sports, who was used to being the star, adjusting to life as a role player hasn’t been without internal conflict.
“It’s frustrating, but I’ve embraced my role,” he said. “I’ve embraced my target. All I have to do when I’m called upon is deliver.” Like he did for Anastasia. Like he did i n college when he hit a home run in his last at-bat before missing 10 games while recovering from his bone-marrow donation. Like when he hit another in his first atbat after returning from the procedure.
Like he did when he took Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw deep for his first home run last season, in his first game back after he was recalled from the minor leagues.
Grit has helped Szczur become great at multiple sports. He began taking karate lessons when he was 3 years old. By 5, he began wrestling.
Two months after he started that sport, in his first tournament, the determination was born.
During one match, Szczur was in bottom position and he froze. His opponent couldn’t budge him.
“So he gets up and I said, ‘Matt, what’s going on? Why didn’t you do anything?’ ” Marc Szczur said. “He opens his hand and his tooth is in it. It fell out and he grabbed it off that mat and he says, ‘I didn’t want to lose this.’ ”
Szczur has started 28 games but has appeared in 103 entering Wednesday. He has played all three outfield positions, batted in every position and pinched-hit 48 times.