Trots
02-21-2003, 11:50 PM
Pettyjohn thrilled to be back on the baseball field
By: JIMN HAWKINS , Of The Oakland Press 02/21/2003
February 21, 2003
LAKELAND, Fla. - Don't try to tell pitcher Adam Pettyjohn that the Tigers are cheap.
If it weren't for the generosity of the Tigers, who chartered a Lear jet to fly Pettyjohn from California to Detroit last March, Adam might not be alive today.
Don't try to tell him how bad the Tigers figure to be on the playing field this year.
To Pettyjohn, miraculously on the comeback trail after three major surgeries and one procedure in the past 11 months, they never looked better.
Thursday, while the major leaguers, in their dress whites, worked out on the adjacent practice fields, the 25-year-old Pettyjohn, clad in navy blue T-shirt and shorts that identified him as a minor leaguer, sounded positively thrilled just to be playing catch.
"This is so much fun," he exclaimed, "just to be able to come out and play baseball again."
Pettyjohn is, indeed, an amazing, heart-warming saga reminiscent of another Tiger lefthander, John Hiller, who suffered a sudden heart attack and underwent bypass surgery in 1971, then returned two years later - long after his career was pronounced over - to become one of the best relief pitchers in Tiger history.
It seemed like no big deal
Two years ago, Pettyjohn, a former teammate of Jeff Weaver's at Fresno State, the leading pitcher on Team USA as a sophomore in college, made nine starts as a mid-season member of the Tigers' rotation.
Last season was supposed to be his breakthrough year.
Pettyjohn had been diagnosed in April 2001 as having an ulcerated colon. But he dismissed it as no big deal. He was young. He was strong. He was a professional baseball player. He had it made. Besides, doctors assured him his condition was in remission.
On January 12, 2002, Pettyjohn got married. Four days later, on their honeymoon, his bride, Deanna, broke down in tears when she found the toilet bowl filled with blood.
Suddenly, Adam found himself going to the bathroom 25 times a day. On his good days, he usually made it. "I would eat a taco or something, and it would go right through me," he recalled Thursday.
Still, Pettyjohn was thinking about spring training, focused on his budding baseball career. He kept trying to throw, but couldn't. Finally, two days before he was supposed to report to Lakeland for spring training, Pettyjohn phoned former Tiger trainer Russ Miller. "I just can't do it," he said.
"It was the worst physical pain, the worst mental pain I ever felt," he recalled.
His weight dived from 200 to 135 in less than two months. Suddenly, he was so weak he couldn't get around without a walker.
An experienced doctor
Pettyjohn was resigned to the fact that he needed surgery but the doctor who was treating him in California had never performed this particularly tricky operation before. And in surgery, as in baseball, experience matters.
But Pettyjohn didn't have the strength to make the four-hour trek by car to one of the state's major medical centers. "Besides, I couldn't afford to be away from a bathroom that long," he said.
The Tigers offered to fly him first class back to Detroit to have the operation. But Pettyjohn couldn't risk it. "If someone happened to be in the bathroom when I had to go, I wouldn't have been able to wait," he said.
Finally, as a last resort, the team chartered a Lear Jet and, Pettyjohn - flat on his back, strapped to a gurney - made the five-hour trip to Detroit accompanied by his wife, a doctor and a nurse.
According to Pettyjohn, the doctor who performed the initial surgery said "I had the worst colon he had ever seen."
After the operation, nurses told him if he waited just one more week, his vital organs, his liver and his kidneys, would have begun shutting down.
His condition was so serious he had to undergo two more surgeries last summer, all the while eating ice cream by the gallon, drinking milk shakes with every meal, to build his weight back up.
Nevertheless, Pettyjohn expects to be ready to return to the mound by the middle of next month when the minor leaguers' exhibition season begins. He expects to be pitching in Toledo, an hour away from pitching-poor Detroit, when the Triple-A baseball season begins.
"Baseball is still secondary to me," Pettyjohn admitted. "I don't have to make it all the way back just to feel good.
"The important thing," he added, "is to play somewhere."
But what would it mean to Pettyjohn to pitch again in the big leagues someday?
"Oh, my goodness!" he declared. "My wife and I talk about that all the time, just to be able to go back up there."
You can't help but root for a guy like that.
(Jim Hawkins is a sports columnist for the Oakland Press. E-mail him at jim.hawkins@oakpress.com.)
©The Oakland Press 2003
By: JIMN HAWKINS , Of The Oakland Press 02/21/2003
February 21, 2003
LAKELAND, Fla. - Don't try to tell pitcher Adam Pettyjohn that the Tigers are cheap.
If it weren't for the generosity of the Tigers, who chartered a Lear jet to fly Pettyjohn from California to Detroit last March, Adam might not be alive today.
Don't try to tell him how bad the Tigers figure to be on the playing field this year.
To Pettyjohn, miraculously on the comeback trail after three major surgeries and one procedure in the past 11 months, they never looked better.
Thursday, while the major leaguers, in their dress whites, worked out on the adjacent practice fields, the 25-year-old Pettyjohn, clad in navy blue T-shirt and shorts that identified him as a minor leaguer, sounded positively thrilled just to be playing catch.
"This is so much fun," he exclaimed, "just to be able to come out and play baseball again."
Pettyjohn is, indeed, an amazing, heart-warming saga reminiscent of another Tiger lefthander, John Hiller, who suffered a sudden heart attack and underwent bypass surgery in 1971, then returned two years later - long after his career was pronounced over - to become one of the best relief pitchers in Tiger history.
It seemed like no big deal
Two years ago, Pettyjohn, a former teammate of Jeff Weaver's at Fresno State, the leading pitcher on Team USA as a sophomore in college, made nine starts as a mid-season member of the Tigers' rotation.
Last season was supposed to be his breakthrough year.
Pettyjohn had been diagnosed in April 2001 as having an ulcerated colon. But he dismissed it as no big deal. He was young. He was strong. He was a professional baseball player. He had it made. Besides, doctors assured him his condition was in remission.
On January 12, 2002, Pettyjohn got married. Four days later, on their honeymoon, his bride, Deanna, broke down in tears when she found the toilet bowl filled with blood.
Suddenly, Adam found himself going to the bathroom 25 times a day. On his good days, he usually made it. "I would eat a taco or something, and it would go right through me," he recalled Thursday.
Still, Pettyjohn was thinking about spring training, focused on his budding baseball career. He kept trying to throw, but couldn't. Finally, two days before he was supposed to report to Lakeland for spring training, Pettyjohn phoned former Tiger trainer Russ Miller. "I just can't do it," he said.
"It was the worst physical pain, the worst mental pain I ever felt," he recalled.
His weight dived from 200 to 135 in less than two months. Suddenly, he was so weak he couldn't get around without a walker.
An experienced doctor
Pettyjohn was resigned to the fact that he needed surgery but the doctor who was treating him in California had never performed this particularly tricky operation before. And in surgery, as in baseball, experience matters.
But Pettyjohn didn't have the strength to make the four-hour trek by car to one of the state's major medical centers. "Besides, I couldn't afford to be away from a bathroom that long," he said.
The Tigers offered to fly him first class back to Detroit to have the operation. But Pettyjohn couldn't risk it. "If someone happened to be in the bathroom when I had to go, I wouldn't have been able to wait," he said.
Finally, as a last resort, the team chartered a Lear Jet and, Pettyjohn - flat on his back, strapped to a gurney - made the five-hour trip to Detroit accompanied by his wife, a doctor and a nurse.
According to Pettyjohn, the doctor who performed the initial surgery said "I had the worst colon he had ever seen."
After the operation, nurses told him if he waited just one more week, his vital organs, his liver and his kidneys, would have begun shutting down.
His condition was so serious he had to undergo two more surgeries last summer, all the while eating ice cream by the gallon, drinking milk shakes with every meal, to build his weight back up.
Nevertheless, Pettyjohn expects to be ready to return to the mound by the middle of next month when the minor leaguers' exhibition season begins. He expects to be pitching in Toledo, an hour away from pitching-poor Detroit, when the Triple-A baseball season begins.
"Baseball is still secondary to me," Pettyjohn admitted. "I don't have to make it all the way back just to feel good.
"The important thing," he added, "is to play somewhere."
But what would it mean to Pettyjohn to pitch again in the big leagues someday?
"Oh, my goodness!" he declared. "My wife and I talk about that all the time, just to be able to go back up there."
You can't help but root for a guy like that.
(Jim Hawkins is a sports columnist for the Oakland Press. E-mail him at jim.hawkins@oakpress.com.)
©The Oakland Press 2003