MLB player with colon cancer likely to miss season
Trey Mancini wants there to be a baseball season in 2020. He realizes any form of playing will likely take place without him.
In a Players’ Tribune post, the Baltimore Orioles outfielder revealed how doctors diagnosed his Stage III colon cancer after a colonoscopy that followed low iron levels during a pair of blood tests at the start of spring training.
A malignant tumor was removed on March 12, less than a week after his diagnosis, Mancini wrote. He began chemotherapy on April 6 and will continue that treatment every two weeks for six months.
“If baseball returns in 2020, it will probably be without me,” Mancini wrote.
“I have no doubt that, even when I’m doing chemo, I can work out and do some things. So, whenever the time comes for me to come back to baseball, I’ll be ready.
“But I just want to make sure that I am physically fine before I go out there and start trying to perform again at a major league level.”
Mancini, a former eighth round pick out of Notre Dame, described how he drives to chemo appointments by himself because coronavirus restrictions prohibit others from entering the hospital.
“I’ve just had to quickly accept this as my new reality,” he said. “And I have a new challenge ahead of me now: Rather than facing Gerrit Cole on Opening Day, I’m going to have to go through chemo.”
Mancini enjoyed a strong rookie campaign in 2017 before regressing the next season. But in 2019, he bashed 35 homers and drove in 97 runs with a .899 OPS.