Hardest Pitch for Dravecky : Cancer Could Mean Amputation, but Former Pitcher Keeps Faith

Inside the large hotel ballroom in Irvine, seats were being filled with dark suits and glittering dresses. String music decorated the air. Glasses clinked, expectations rose.

Down the hall, the guest of honor sat slumped in a chair.

Dave Dravecky was pale. He was tired. His left arm hurt.

On this night, like many since his retirement from baseball last year, Dravecky was being paid to inspire. The former San Francisco Giant pitcher would speak about his comeback from cancer.

He would talk about undergoing surgery for a tumor in his left arm in October 1988. He would talk about how he miraculously pitched and won one game for the Giants 10 months later, before retiring after his weak arm was broken twice in the season’s final months.

It will be an honest, intensely personal speech. But it will leave something out.

Late last summer, the comeback stalled. Cancer returned to his arm.

For eight weeks, he fought it with radiation therapy. The treatment left his arm subject to painful infections, and the arm is virtually immobile.

“I have not even been able to eat with it since August,” he said. “It’s very, very sore. I get tired very easy.”

Recent tests did not reveal any new cancer cells. But next Friday, he will meet with doctors at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York to examine the results more closely.

As Dravecky understands it, if the cancer is still there, only one procedure can stop it from spreading to the rest of his body.

“They could possibly have to amputate my arm,” Dravecky said quietly. “We’ve tried everything else. There could be no other choice.”

As always, Dravecky speaks in measured tones. There is no trace of regret, no remorse. He speaks of his troubles as if he were ordering from a menu.

But from each word hangs the irony that has engulfed his life.

Less than a year after publishing his big-selling book, “Comeback,” after giving dozens of speeches about overcoming adversity, Dravecky has discovered that the odds against him are still stacked.

“How unique it is, what God has in store for us,” he said, managing a smile. “But my answer to questions about this latest problem has not changed from my answers when all this began.

“Nobody ever promised that life would be fair. Everybody is going to have adversity. The only way to handle it is to take our eyes off our own circumstances and put them on the Lord.”

There was a happy ending, but it proved to be an illusion. There was happiness, but it was no ending.

On Aug. 10, 1989, in the most memorable baseball game of that season, Dravecky used his left arm to throw eight strong innings and defeat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3.

It was his first appearance since he had 50% of the major pitching muscle removed from that left arm during cancer surgery the previous October. It was a performance that captivated a nation and stunned even Dravecky.

“It’s a miracle,” a tearful Dravecky said at the time. “Anything that happens after this is icing on the cake.”

Nothing so sweet would happen again.

Five days later, in the sixth inning at Montreal, on his first pitch to Tim Raines with a runner on first base, Dravecky’s left arm broke. The bone had been weakened from the freezing techniques used during the earlier surgery.

Even though he was out for the season, Dravecky thought he could make another comeback and remained with the team.

But two months later, while trying to celebrate after the Giants won the National League Championship Series over the Chicago Cubs, he was knocked in the back, and the arm was broken again.

He was still considering a comeback until, a few days before the Giants’ final World Series loss to the Oakland A’s, doctors discovered a mass in his arm that resembled another cancerous tumor.

“I remember my wife, Janice, asking me what I would tell myself if I were in her shoes,” he said. “I immediately said, ‘I would tell me to retire.’ She looked at me and said, ‘There’s your answer.’ ”

After eight major league seasons, highlighted by one All-Star game appearance and a 0.35 earned-run average in seven postseason games, Dravecky retired. It was just in time for him to undergo a second cancer operation.

This time, last Jan. 4, doctors removed the remainder of his deltoid muscle and 10% of his triceps muscle. Four months later, he underwent cosmetic surgery to help his arm heal more quickly.

And that was supposed to be the end of it.

He enthusiastically began a new career, touring the country with a Bible in his back pocket, pulling it out for churches and convention groups to espouse the role of his faith in his recovery.

“It was amazing that he adjusted so well to life after baseball,” said Atlee Hammaker, a former Giant who now pitches for the Padres and is one of Dravecky’s best friends. “It was like, he never missed it.

“What had happened to him gave him a platform to live out of his faith and spread the word. I don’t think he’s ever been happier.”

Said Dravecky: “I have to admit, this season I didn’t watch one regular-season game from start to finish. I think I only saw parts of five games, period. I had other work to do.”

Then in August, tests showed the cancer had returned. This time, there could be no more surgery short of amputation.

“All I could think of was, ‘This man has dealt with one thing after another. How much more does he have to take?’ ” Hammaker said.

Outwardly, Dravecky attacked the news with his usual enthusiasm--even though doctors prescribed radiation treatments on his arm five days a week for eight weeks at a clinic in Cleveland, which is 1 1/2 hours from his home in Youngstown, Ohio.

Instead of moving to Cleveland, he drove to the clinic from his home each day, using the time to turn his Ford Bronco into a moving church.

“I would play tapes from Chuck Swindoll (a Fullerton pastor) and then I would play praise music,” he said. “I was worshiping on wheels.”

He would leave his home in the morning and return by the time his children were back from school. For eight weeks, his closest companions were the Ohio Turnpike and his thoughts. Sometimes both were equally dismal.

“Dave doesn’t get discouraged about the arm, but he has gotten discouraged about things in general,” Hammaker said. “He’ll mention how he can’t stand to have another surgery. Or he will say, ‘I don’t know how much more of this I can deal with.’

“But those thoughts only seem to last a moment. Then he goes back to his faith. He has some real faith.”

Said Dravecky: “My focus is not just on how I can become healed, but how can I serve God through all this.

“You better believe I want to get better. Man, I really want to be healed. But I understand that may not happen. And that doesn’t mean that God is an ogre.”

Dravecky said next Friday will be a big day in his life. But like the day last year when he took the mound against Cincinnati, he is ready for it.

“Amputation is something that I have already accepted,” he said. “I am very much prepared. If the doctors say they are strongly considering amputation, I will say, ‘Fine, get it off. Get rid of it.’

“When your eye is only on eternity, you can handle what happens in the present.”

He smiled briefly before being led off to face that banquet room full of expectant faces.

“My only regret,” he said, “is that I will be a one-handed golfer.”