Landing on His Feet

Veteran first baseman Wally Joyner went to the Atlanta Braves last winter in a six-player trade with the San Diego Padres as an insurance policy if Andres Galarraga was unable to return because of the cancer in his spine.

It is not as if the Braves have canceled the policy, but Joyner has been restricted to a premium seat as he watches Galarraga manufacture the comeback of this or any year.

“Hopefully, the Braves still look on it as a worthwhile investment,” Joyner said of his acquisition, “but we’re all certainly happy about Andres. He’s a wonderful surprise. I don’t think anyone knew what to expect.

“I went to him in spring training and told him I didn’t want him to feel pressured. I told him that I was only there so he could go full bore and have somebody to pick up for him if he needed a day. Until then, I told him, he was the man.”

Galarraga has been that and more, lighting up the clubhouse with his infectious smile as he lights up opposing pitchers, coming back from a year of uncertainty to help power the Braves to a 19-6 record and club-record 14-game win streak through Monday.

Coming back, at 38, from a year of chemotherapy to ignite a series of timely explosions--”I don’t know how many game-winning hits he’s had, but it’s way up there already,” Manager Bobby Cox said--and resume his 1998 barrage of 44 home runs and 121 runs batted in.

Coming back from a year on the sideline to provide the Braves with a positive contrast to the seemingly never-ending negative of John Rocker.

“There are no words to describe how I feel,” Galarraga said in San Diego the other day. “I didn’t know if I would be alive, let alone playing baseball again, but I believed in the medicine and I believed in God, and with all the people who prayed for me, that’s why I’m here today, why I’m so happy and excited. I feel good, I feel strong, I feel like nothing ever happened.”

Forget the blood tests and CT scans. Measure Galarraga’s health on the basis of his 10 homers in April, his 24 RBIs and .297 batting average. He is tied for the National League lead in homers, and six of the 10 have tied the score or given the Braves the lead in the fifth inning or later. As Atlanta’s oldest regular starter since Henry Aaron played at 39 in 1973, Galarraga is rejecting the march of time as he did the insidious growth of the small bone cancer near the bottom of his spine.

Galarraga had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and although he requires occasional monitoring, there is no evidence of the disease now and no indication he is susceptible to its return.

Greg Maddux looked at that big picture and said, “All of this, to be playing as well as he is right now, is just a bonus. He has his health, his family, the opportunity to raise his kids. The man had cancer. We’re just glad to have him here.”

Said shortstop Walt Weiss, a teammate in Colorado and Atlanta: “What Cat’s doing is nothing short of amazing. He’s had the big hit time and time again. You can’t expect that of anybody, let alone somebody who has been through what he has. He’s always been an uplifting guy, the type person who has a positive impact on everybody who comes in contact with him, and I think that’s even more of the case now.”

In other words, the often businesslike Braves, to a large extent, are feeding off his vibrancy.

“We could never have anticipated this great a start,” Cox said. “We were hoping he’d be in shape by mid-April, but we were in uncharted waters. We didn’t know what to expect. But Cat has a huge heart, and I think that has a lot to do with it. He’s special.”

He has always been the Big Cat, and at a robust 6 feet 3 and 240 pounds, he has lost none of his Gold Glove dexterity around first base--or his timing in the batter’s box.

“The doctor says you have cancer and you think you’re going to die the next day,” Galarraga said. “But they also told me they had the medicine to cure it, and I felt better about it and determined to be positive so that my family wouldn’t worry. The chemo was the worst part, but it was also the part that made me well again. It was like having a year off for vacation, and maybe that was good for me mentally. From the first day of spring training, I felt that I was back, that I hadn’t missed any time. I’m comfortable and just trying to make hard contact.”

The humble Galarraga said he takes pride in himself for what he has battled through. A symbol of resiliency.

On the bench, Joyner has a special appreciation. He is 100% after battling a shoulder injury that eroded his performance with the Padres last year and a small break in his right foot that cost him a month of spring training with the Braves.

Like Galarraga, he is in the last year of a contract unless the Braves pick up a $3.375-million option, a heavy price for insurance.

“I’ve played enough that the need to play every day isn’t there, but the desire is,” said Joyner, 37. “I still have the fire and love. I still think I can compete at this level. I’m coming off the type year that I’d like to prove to myself I can still play, but I won’t push the issue of playing. I understand my role here.”

Joyner, who has played in 13 games with six hits in 18 at-bats, understands that Galarraga is still the man and that the man, as Galarraga put it, has a renewed love for life and baseball.

He relates it in terms of the vision that came to him in a dream shortly after he had been diagnosed.

Galarraga remembers falling asleep on the couch in his living room and God coming to him and carrying him to the bedroom and that when he tried to look up and see God’s face, he saw only light.

“I can never forget it,” he said. “It was wonderful. I had on only a T-shirt and shorts, but I was sweating as if I had just come out of a shower, calling for my wife. I knew then that no matter what happened I was going to stay positive and that I would be OK. I mean, anything is positive if you believe in the power of God, and that is why I can’t stop smiling. I am so blessed. I hope to play forever.”

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Comeback Trail

Andres Galarraga has come back strong after missing last season because of cancer. A look at his statistics, and those of two other active players who missed an entire season because of injury or illness:

ANDRES GALARRAGA

1998: .304 Avg., 44 HR, 121 RBI

1999: Missed season

2000*: .294 Avg., 10 HR, 24 RBI

*

RON GANT

1993: .274 Avg., 36 HR, 117, RBI

1994: Missed season

1995: .276 Avg., 29 HR, 88, RBI

*

ERIC DAVIS

1994: .183 Avg., 3 HR, 13 RBI

1995: Missed season

1996: .287 Avg., 26 HR, 83 RBI

*Through 25 games