Make a Wish for Him

By MIKE DOWNEY

May 8, 1996 12 AM PT

Brett Butler checked into the hospital with a child’s disease. His tonsils had to come out. For someone whose 39th birthday is next month, this made the Dodger center fielder the object of some understandably good-natured ribbing from his teammates, who promised Brett that as soon as the doctor said his throat was all better, they would be sure to buy him some ice cream.

But Butler does not have a youngster’s illness. His tonsillitis turned out to be something considerably more terrifying, to child or man. A doctor came into his Atlanta hospital room with a diagnosis of Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the throat, the layman’s definition of squamous being “like, formed of, or covered with scales.”

A devoutly religious man who belongs to leukemia and cystic fibrosis foundations and volunteers time to the “Make a Wish” charity that makes dreams come true for kids afflicted with terminal illnesses, Butler suddenly found himself with a wish of his own. “My wife and I would ask for your prayers for us and our children at this difficult time,” he said, squared up to face the hardest sacrifice of his life.

Butler will be grateful for the moral support, even more than he would have been last summer, during what then seemed an uncommonly painful ordeal. Having heard jeers after a career filled with cheers for his uncompromising stance in union-related matters, Butler was unnerved, away from the field. On it, though, he rarely played better, batting .345 after the midsummer All-Star break and reinvigorating the Dodgers to a division championship.

His kind of esprit de corps was what moved General Manager Fred Claire to say of Butler, after hearing the stunning news of his cancer, “Brett is not just a member of this team. He is a leader of this team.”

That he is, which was why becoming a lightning rod for the internal squabbles of the Dodgers last season was particularly troublesome for Butler, as was the strike itself and his exile to the New York Mets, when he was not invited back to be a Dodger in 1995. That hurt, all of it. But those were feelings, which heal far more easily than what afflicts him now.

From his sickbed in Atlanta, where his family lives because Butler prefers not to uproot them from home and schools, the Dodger outfielder did not ask for support so much as use the opportunity to spread the news, because, as he said, “We have many friends in and out of baseball, and this will come as a major shock. It is impossible to speak to all of them personally.”

He should rest assured, then, that two things are true. One is that friends and strangers alike will have the Dodger outfielder in their prayers, and the other is that all around us exists living proof of the resilience of the human body, particularly the professional athlete’s.

Pitching vigorously for Butler’s own team is young Scott Radinsky, who sat out the entirety of the 1994 season after Hodgkin’s disease was detected by his doctors. Playing some of the greatest hockey of his life at present is Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who similarly sat out a full season after being stricken with Hodgkin’s himself. No doubt each would encourage Butler to hang in there and fight this thing with everything he’s got.

If it is empathy he needs, Butler should turn no further than to major leaguers such as Darren Daulton, Danny Jackson and John Kruk, all of whom have waged war with various forms of cancer, or to golfer Paul Azinger, whose uphill battle has been so inspiring, or to a couple of Southern California pro hockey players, Tony Granato of the Kings, who is recuperating from a brain tumor, and Milos Holan of the Mighty Ducks, who is struggling with leukemia. Consider today’s sports page a get-well card to all.

Butler’s future in baseball is irrelevant. His career, like his season, could be over, considering his age. But anyone who knows Brett, no matter what he meant about baseball being the “foundation of my life,” knows that he would trade his bat, mitt and cap gladly for a long, full life surrounded by his wife, Eveline, and their four kids, ages 8 to 13.

The image that immortalizes Butler, in fact, in baseball fans’ hearts and minds is not that of him bunting a baseball or breaking with the sound of the bat toward the center-field fence to rob somebody of a double. The indelible memory of Butler is his carrying a child, fireman style, from the field to safety after an earthquake interrupted a 1989 World Series game in San Francisco, when it was time for grown-ups to put aside childish things.

And now here he is, weak and vulnerable as a child himself.

There isn’t a man among the Dodgers who wouldn’t step forward today and volunteer to carry Brett Butler from harm’s way, if only this were all it took. Butler’s energy and willpower carried the ballclub to victory on many a day. Lord willing, he has plenty of each left, so he can beat this.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

A list of some athletes stricken by cancer during their careers:

Auto Racing

Richard Petty, NASCAR

Baseball

Brett Butler, Dodgers

Darren Daulton, Philadelphia Phillies

Jerry DiPoto, Cleveland Indians

Dave Dravecky, San Francisco Giants

Danny Jackson, Pittsburgh Pirates

John Kruk, Philadelphia Phillies

Scott Radinsky, Chicago White Sox