Gary Carter diagnosed with small tumors on his brain

[G-Fafif]

Gary inducted into Mets HOF 8/12/2001. Looked like Kid in a candy store.

[smg58]

TransMonk wrote: Gary Carter MRI reveals new tumors Horrible.

I had a feeling this was coming, but that doesn't make it less horrible.

[metirish]

smg58 wrote: TransMonk wrote: Gary Carter MRI reveals new tumors Horrible. I had a feeling this was coming, but that doesn't make it less horrible.

yeah, sad news.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Talking Gary Carter on the bladio tonight (8:40ish?): http://www.blogtalkradio.com/nybaseballtalk/2012/01/23/tom-seaver-the-last-icon

[Edgy MD]

Tuning in NOW!!!!

Talking to Steven Travers, author of The Last Icon.

[Edgy MD]

Oooh, he just described Grant and Young as "rightly excoriated."

[Edgy MD]

Really doing a good job in describing Seaver's aloofness from mere mortals.

[Edgy MD]

Hanging in there. Good job so far.

[ashie62]

Edgy DC wrote: Johnson. El Sid. Franco.

Hojo Grote

[Edgy MD]

[youtube:e3ma89n5]hIIQULPkWnk[/youtube:e3ma89n5]

I wanted my life to be as full of unadulterated joy as Gary Carter's showers.

[G-Fafif]

Richard Sandomir on Kimmy's diary.

January 23, 2012 Carter�s Poignant Turns, Chronicled by a Daughter By RICHARD SANDOMIR Like her father, Gary Carter, Kimmy Bloemers was a catcher. She played at Florida State. He spent most of his Hall of Fame career with the Montreal Expos and the Mets. The two extended their sports bond in 2009 when Carter was named the baseball coach at Palm Beach Atlantic University, where Bloemers has coached the women�s softball team since 2007. But the joy of coaching on the same campus has given way to the somber reality of Carter�s inoperable brain cancer, a diagnosis he received last May. Since then, Bloemers has been writing an intimate family journal on CaringBridge.org about her father�s illness and how the Carters are being sustained by their Christian faith and his competitive fire. The diary�s 55 entries, spread over 121 pages, create a continuing narrative of heartbreak and spiritual uplift. In the postings, Bloemers writes with the exuberance of her famously upbeat father � a devoted younger daughter who says she copes with the grimness of her father�s decline with Biblical quotations, music, family meals and the generosity of friends and neighbors. Late last May, she described her wish that the next day�s biopsy on her father�s tumors could be performed in a crowded baseball stadium, rather than in Duke University Medical Center�s Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center. �Dad loves to hear clapping, cheering and lots of enthusiasm,� she wrote, �so let�s get rowdy for �The Kid.�� Several days later, after Carter, who is 57, was found to have glioblastoma, an aggressive, fast-moving cancer, Bloemers�s sadness at the physical changes visible in her father was tempered with the hope of a miracle. �Team Carter believes that dad will hit one out of the park,� she wrote. �We are pouring the �unknown� and fearful thoughts to Jesus and not allowing Satan to get the best of us.� Then, last Thursday afternoon, Bloemers wrote �with tears� about the appearance of �several new spots/tumors on my dad�s brain� on a magnetic resonance imaging exam. One of his doctors was to visit the family that night, but she has not provided an update since that day. �The Lord is my strength and shield,� she wrote at the end of her posting. �I trust him with my heart.� Despite her father�s condition, Bloemers, her sister, Christy, and her brother, D. J., were able to accept the �You Gotta Have Heart� Award for him from the Baseball Writers� Association of America on Saturday night at the New York Hilton. In serving as her family�s health-news emissary, Bloemers is following others who, through traditional methods or social media, have found a means to communicate the details of life-threatening illnesses. The British-born essayist and atheist Christopher Hitchens wrote as vigorously about his cancer as he did about the myriad subjects that engaged him with a fury before his death last month. During the 19 months he lived with the same type of brain cancer that Carter has, the former Yankees outfielder and announcer Bobby Murcer spoke regularly about his sickness, returned to work on a limited basis for the YES Network and wrote an autobiography that described his faith and his devotion to his wife, Kay. �God has blessed us so much since I was diagnosed with this brain tumor, and so many blessings have come my way,� he said during an interview shortly before he died. �It�s changed our life for the better.� He died in July 2008. Michael Douglas has used talk shows and other public forums to discuss his treatment for throat cancer. And after Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie-Mellon, learned he had pancreatic cancer, he delivered what was called his �Last Lecture,� a direct talk about how to live. It became an Internet sensation and was expanded into a best-selling book before his death in 2008. Although Carter has made some remarks about his illness, Bloemers�s account has provided a vivid, almost daily picture of a close, Christian family � Carter and his wife, Sandy; their children; three grandchildren; and two sons-in-law � coping with Carter�s debilitating treatments, physical therapy, hair loss, bloating mouth wounds, exercise, headaches, back pain, kidney stones, pneumonia, falls that tore his rotator cuff, blood clots and emergency room visits. There have been exhilarating moments, as when Carter was healthy enough to make a two-mile nighttime walk with Sandy, when he was able to swim for exercise, when he took notes during a church sermon, or when his white blood cell count rose high enough for chemotherapy. One day last August, Bloemers wrote, �Dad�s tumors are 80 percent better!� One night, the Carters watched all of his old commercials (Ivory, Pringles and 7Up � with Christy, a toddler, pitching to him). �He looked so good and happy,� Bloemers wrote. Hank Aaron and Mike Krzyzewski have called, according to Bloemers. His friend and former Expos teammate Tommy Hutton has taken him for physical therapy. There have been disappointments that must have pierced Carter�s athletic pride as he has continued to coach his team. Last September, he threw batting practice, but not to his satisfaction. �He tried a couple of times, and in his eyes, he had failed,� Bloemers wrote. �He talked with my mom and was saddened/disappointed that things are starting to be �taken away from me� ... golf, throwing b.p.� But when he coached a game a month later, she wrote that �he enjoyed calling the plays.� �Dad absolutely loves to be the skipper,� she added. Last month, Carter wanted to buy a Christmas gift for his wife. Bloemers drove him to a mall, but he was weak, fatigued and shaky and had to sit in a chair. As they left, Bloemers wrote, �the lady who sold me mom�s gift, pulled me aside and said she is adding my dad to her prayer list and hugged me. She saw the tears in my eyes and realized that it meant so much to hear that.� Then, on Christmas Eve, with D. J. Carter dressed as Santa Claus, Carter stumbled and fell hard into a glass window, then onto the floor, injuring his shoulder. An M.R.I. later revealed a complete tear of his rotator cuff that will require surgery. �Tough night for Dad, � Bloemers wrote. �Thankfully, the pain subsided as time went on.� In the entry that preceded news that more tumors had been found in her father�s brain, Bloemers described his joy at this year�s first practice for his team. �Now that baseball season has begun, his spirits have lifted a bit and I believe he is excited to see his team,� she wrote. �His weak body limits his physical involvement, but the fact that he wants to go and still teach his players is beyond amazing.�

[metirish]

I've a lump or something in my throat. I think in many ways reading his daughters postings makes it sadder in some respects to see what Kid is going through a long with his family.

Sandomir has become one of my favorite writers out there.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Guest

[soupcan]

metirish wrote: Sandomir has become one of my favorite writers out there.

Not only do I like Sandomir, I love what he writes about.

[Edgy MD]

Jeff Pearlman turns in his cynic card.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

eh. I made fun of him when it was cool to, now that he's gonna die in 2 weeks, I can admit that was unfair.

[dgwphotography]

Jerry Izenberg on Gary Carter:

Gary Carter may come off like a clich�, to the point where a lot of other players mistrust him, but the genuine article comes along so rarely it can be hard to recognize when it looks you in the eye

[metirish]

Good for Pearlman if he feels the need to apologize but I don't think he does.

[Edgy MD]

I think maybe he does. Not for Carter, but for himself.

He's a rare gift as a sports reporter who is willing to do investigative reporting. But his rooting interest in guys to be more colorful, even if that means more self-destructive, has turned him into a bitter pill, and he acknowledges that he has come to hate baseball at times. It's not all baseball's fault.

[G-Fafif]

Jerry Izenberg on Gary Carter: Gary Carter may come off like a clich�, to the point where a lot of other players mistrust him, but the genuine article comes along so rarely it can be hard to recognize when it looks you in the eye

Great quote from a great writer about a great player from a great book about The Greatest Game Ever Played.

[G-Fafif]

I don't remember thinking Pearlman was unfair to Carter in the book. What made that such a compelling team was the contrast in personalities. Gary and Mookie were the sunnier or straighter side of a bunch of alleged (or actual) reprobates. I just took another look at the first part of Chapter 6 and none of it puts Carter in a bad light. Just different from his teammates as portrayed by the author.

[Centerfield]

I made fun of Gary Carter too. But, let's face it, he gave the world plenty of material. From the Hall of Fame party he threw for himself, to the unabashed campaigning for Jerry Manuel's job, it was hard not to make fun of the guy.

But it really is unfair that out of all of the 86 Mets, that the devoted family guy who didn't drink or do drugs is going to be the first to go.

Life sucks.

[G-Fafif]

Hardly the point of any of this, but...

Re-thumbing through the paperback edition of Bad Guys (the one with a bunch of initial mistakes corrected) and reading about the trade that sent Carter to NY, Pearlman has Howard Cosell theatrically delivering the news ("Lay-dees and gent-el-men, this just in...") on December 10, 1984, during Monday Night Football. Except Cosell wasn't doing MNF by then. His last football game for ABC was a Friday Night debacle between the Jets and Dolphins to close out the 1983 season (as recounted in Marc Gunther's and Bill Carter's MNF book). It was big news that Cosell quit the series in advance of the 1984 NFL season.

Pearlman doesn't have to issue an apology for that, either, but on his blog, promoting his Walter Payton book, he's consistently touted how much research he did and how much research is necessary in his work. Mistakes happen anyway, but this one was incredibly unnecessary, as if there wasn't enough drama attached to the 1986 Mets in general and Gary Carter's acquisition specifically unless he could puff it up with a reference to the most dramatic sportscaster of them all.

This was a tangent, but stuff like that drives me nuts.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Geez. Guy makes me wanna kill people sometimes.

Also I make fun of GC. I believe I one time keystroked the passage about "touching" his teammates from his book, taken out of context it was a scream (just found it again).

The idea of grown men, athletes, touching each other may bring some chuckles here and there. But it isn't sexual. Bill Robinson and I have a ritual, which we call our "good-luck hug." I go into the clubhouse every night and look for Uncle Bill. "Hey," I'll say, "where's my good-luck hug?" He'll give it to me. It would take a very brave man to suggest that Uncle Bill or I have a gay streak.

The Mets were close and we touched, and the touching grew as the season went by.

I realized how the Mets had gotten into the habit of touching in the dream season of 1986. Ray and I. Uncle Bill and I.

How many times had I hugged Dwight Gooden and said, 'You're the best'? I comes from something, this touching. Closeness. Affection. Respect. Watch Keith Hernandez: He's a hugger. ... I love being his teammate and I'll say it by grabbing his hand, or embracing him.

[Edgy MD]

Centerfield wrote: I made fun of Gary Carter too. But, let's face it, he gave the world plenty of material.

Certainly, and the soap commercial I posted above is a great example. I think a more grown up and self-aware Pearlman maybe realizes it was too easy to title a chapter "Gary Carter Is a Geek." Just give the facts and let it roll out as it will. We're mostly all more nuanced than that.

It is, after all, Carter's own lack of self-awareness that has made him such an easy target, and a small tragedy among the greater tragedies that were the downfalls of so many of his teammates. So I'll give Pearlman a manly heteronormative hug for wanting to shed some smug and grow some self-awareness himself. (As the Cosell fabrication above shows, he certainly could have used some back then.)

It doesn't change the facts about Carter, only the perspective of those facts. It doesn't have to be about Gary vs. Jeff and I think Jeff realizes it.

Reading The Last Icon, you realize the same thing sort of happened with Tom Seaver. He was a decent, honorable sort, which his teammates initially could respect even if they were sometimes a little less decent and less honorable. It was when he realized and exploited the marketability of that image that they saw it as a little less honorable and a little more worthy of eye-rolling. It didn't make him a phony asshole --- like, say, Steve Garvey --- just maybe a little bit of a tool.

But the Crowmarties and the Swobodas who resent it usually come back decades later saying something like, "You know, I was more than a little bit of a tool, myself."

[dgwphotography]

I don't know if something is, imminent, or if this is just preparation, but I was just told that ESPN just put Kid's obituary into rotation.

[metirish]

dgwphotography wrote: I don't know if something is, imminent, or if this is just preparation, but I was just told that ESPN just put Kid's obituary into rotation.

damn

[G-Fafif]

Kid has a game Thursday night.

WEST PALM BEACH � When the Palm Beach Atlantic University baseball team plays its season opener Thursday night at Roger Dean Stadium, the No. 8 jersey of head coach Gary Carter will hang in the dugout. Carter is battling an aggressive form of brain cancer that has sapped his strength at a frightening pace. So his Sailfish players don't expect him to wear the uniform or join them on the bench. But if he can make it to the game, they said, his mere presence will be as uplifting to them as it was in September, when they saw him for the first time since he was diagnosed with cancer in May. On that September morning, the players surrounded him in a tight circle on the gymnasium floor at PBA. With 33 sets of hands touching or reaching for Carter, they prayed with their coach for his recovery. "We had been praying for Coach ever since we found out about his situation. This was more of a heartfelt prayer - a prayer for strength and for peace with what he was going through, whatever the outcome,' said Logan Thomas, a senior starting pitcher who led the prayer. Thomas will be on the mound Thursday when PBA plays its first baseball game since Carter was diagnosed with Stage 4 glioblastoma last May, just days after the previous season ended. The news shocked the campus, but it was especially hard on players who had gone home for the summer not knowing he was ill. Two weeks ago, doctors discovered more tumor spots on Carter's brain, a development that has prompted the family to consider ending medical treatment. The team and the university at large have tried to make the best of a grim situation. "This has been a galvanizing experience for the university,' said William Fleming, the interim president at PBAU, which has 3,700 students and is built on Christian values. "It has been a call to action, not a call to sorrow, here on our campus.' Students wear "Team Carter" bracelets sold by The Gary Carter Foundation, the charity he started in 1992 when he retired from major league baseball after 19 seasons. The blue wristbands also have the inscription "Isaiah 40:31," his favorite Bible verse. Carter, a catcher who was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003, was a big reason many PBA players came to the school after he was hired in the fall of 2009. At the time, Carter had been managing in the minors, hoping for a shot at a major league job. "My comment to him was that he would have a lifetime impact on young men,' Fleming said. "He could shape and mold their lives in ways he would never be able to do in the minors or the majors.' Carter often tries to inspire his players by drawing on his personal experiences. One of his favorite stories recalls how he was determined not to make the last out for the New York Mets in the 1986 World Series. He slapped a hit to help save the Mets from elimination in Game 6 and they went on to beat Boston in seven games. "Listening to Gary Carter talk about Game 6 of the 1986 World Series makes you feel as though you have the dirt and grass of Shea Stadium on your hands," Fleming said. "Gary is a Mount Rushmore-type individual. These young men he has influenced the last three years cling on his every word.' Carter also made it a point to get to know his players and their families, which added to his stature on a campus where Carter's daughter, Kimmy Bloemers, is the school's softball coach. She has chronicled his illness in an online journal intended for family and friends. PBA athletic officials remember that Carter started complaining about headaches last spring. Then, a day or two after his players had left for the summer, he was in the gym taking inventory of team equipment when he had more troubling symptoms. He had trouble with his handwriting and difficulty counting, which led to medical tests and his diagnosis. His players are learning lessons they didn't expect from their coach. "They are gaining character that they probably wouldn't have at other places,' said Kent Bottenfield, a former major league pitcher and longtime Carter friend who was hired in July as PBA's associate baseball coach. "I don't think it has been a 'win one for the Gipper' attitude or anything like that, but they ask all the time about him. (Players are) constantly texting me, calling me, pulling me aside at practice. There's a great concern for him.' Bottenfield, 43, was home in Tennessee last summer when PBA asked him to help. He and his family soon were ready to move south. "We really felt like I was called to come down here, not as much to coach a team but to help a friend and to help a family through a tough time,' said Bottenfield, who was the starting pitcher for the Montreal Expos in Carter's final game on Sept. 27, 1992. When the current school year started in September, Bottenfield told players that Carter's presence would be limited. But they got a welcome surprise when they gathered in the gym for their first conditioning drills of the season. Players looked up that morning to see Carter gingerly walking down the stairs from the mezzanine, where he keeps an office next to a batting cage. One by one, players formed a line at the bottom of the steps. "We all just started hugging him,' Thomas said. "Honestly, it was tough for me because he wasn't the same. But you could still see the light in his eyes, a love for life, a love for baseball, a love for the guys.' Carter watched the drills and then held his first team meeting of the year. He mentioned his illness only briefly while urging them to worry about themselves and work to improve their 27-26 record of the previous season, his second as coach. "Initially he was like, 'Guys, I'm going to make it through this. It's going to OK ' ' Thomas said. "He didn't want us worrying about him because he knew that might take away from baseball.' The meeting ended with the prayer circle. The players saw Carter a few more times in the ensuing months, most recently on Jan. 9 when he came out to their first spring practice at Dyer Park in suburban West Palm Beach. Carter, 57, looked frail. He used a cane as he walked to the field and was aided by his son, D.J. But Carter had a spark when he addressed the team. "He says, 'Guys, the day's finally here! It's spring! Let's get after it!' " Thomas recalled. The Division II program hopes to open its new baseball field in spring 2013 on land just east of I-95 and north of Belvedere Road. Until then, they will play most of their games at Palm Beach Gardens High and at Santaluces High in Lantana. But the opener at 7 p.m. Thursday will be at Roger Dean Stadium, a few miles from Carter's home at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens. If Carter feels well enough to attend, he might ride around the field in a car during the seventh-inning stretch. Fleming is hoping that the game draws a big crowd. "It will be incredible if people turn out," he said. "Their presence would be an indication to their love and admiration for Gary and for the Carter family. "Simply showing up will send a powerful message of love and support to the Kid.'

[Edgy MD]

...but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah

[Edgy MD]

Opening day grand slam.

[G-Fafif]

Never in his brief few minutes with the team did the grin leave his face.

Gosh darn, that's the stuff.