A Winter of Worry for Baseball Great Rod Carew

This is the time of year when Rod Carew’s heart soars. Spring training, when all things seem possible, is around the corner. And just beyond that is Opening Day.

Not this year.

“My heart will be here,” the Hall of Fame hitter said Wednesday in the lobby of Children’s Hospital of Orange County, where his daughter Michelle remains in critical condition, battling leukemia. “And my mind will be in Arizona.”

Usually at this time of year, Carew, the Angels batting coach, is reviewing notes and videos, fretting that one player chases pitches he shouldn’t, that another is too anxious when he steps to the plate. This year, he hasn’t had the time or spirit.

Carew, who leaves for Tempe, Ariz., on Feb. 12, is fearful that the fierce concentration he once banked on--the ability to block out crowd noise, to let an argument roll off--will fail him, and his thoughts will wander to his 18-year-old daughter, who awaits a bone marrow transplant. The procedure could save her life, but as yet no suitable donor has been found.

Carew, an Angels star for seven years and a major leaguer for 19, thought about skipping spring training. But then he decided he had to fight for some sense of normalcy in his life.

Life as he knew it ceased in September, when the family discovered that Michelle was suffering from a potentially fatal form of leukemia.

Since then, a record number of callers--more than 51,000--has flooded the National Marrow Donor Program with requests for information, saying they were prompted by Michelle’s plight. Several thousand people have given blood at marrow testing drives held in Michelle’s name throughout the country and in Canada.

The donors will be added to the national program’s registry in the hope of matching them with one of the more than 2,000 patients who await transplants.

A drive was held at the Tustin Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station on Wednesday. Carew signed autographs as 130 Marines gave blood in the hope of becoming bone marrow donors. Another drive is scheduled for today at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Carew, his wife and their two other daughters--22-year-old Charryse and 20-year-old Stephanie--have remained at Michelle’s side every day, sometimes sleeping in a motor home parked in the hospital lot. Each day they receive dozens of letters from well-wishers worldwide who have read about Michelle in publications that range from People magazine to the Ukrainian Weekly.

One man in New Jersey, who read that Michelle had never seen a snowfall, sent her a video of gently falling flakes.

Carew cried when Michelle had her head shaved because she was losing hair from chemotherapy. He carefully packed her long braids away in a plastic bag and took them home at her request.

Carew and his wife, Marilynn, both 50, have discussed conceiving another child in the hope that it would provide the bone marrow that could save Michelle.

But doctors gently discouraged the idea, saying Michelle does not have the time to wait through a nine-month pregnancy and the two years before a child would be old enough to donate bone marrow. Besides, a sibling has just a one-in-four chance of matching Michelle’s bone marrow.

“When you think about burying a child,” Carew said, his voice cracking, “it has to be one of the worst experiences a parent could go through. What would I do? How would I go about it?”

Michelle’s condition stabilized recently. She fought off septic shock and near blindness. She is off an oxygen machine and breathing on her own. Although she is confined to bed, she receives phone calls and visitors.

She worries about the amount of time her father spends at her side.

“Daddy,” she told him, “if you don’t go to work, you’ll get fired.”

Carew, who doesn’t like to fly, will make the five-hour drive from Tempe to the hospital on days that practice ends early. Angels officials told him not to worry about his schedule.

“Rod has the flexibility and the blessing of this organization to come and go as he pleases, with the understanding that family, and particularly Michelle, comes first,” Angels spokesman John Savanno said. “Nothing comes before family, including this game.”

When Carew is not working or at his daughter’s side, he will continue his campaign for bone marrow donors.

“No matter what happens with Michelle,” he said, “I will keep doing this. How can I not continue?”