Petrick hitches his pants, faces cruel curveball

Disease stole his career, but not his gallant spirit

Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 2, 2007 at midnight

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HILLSBORO, Ore. - The lineup card is on his basement wall, next to a page from a score book detailing that dreamy afternoon in Coors Field.

It was Sept. 1, 1999. Catcher Ben Petrick made his major league debut with the Rockies. He doubled on his first at-bat against Jason Schmidt and singled on his second.

Not far away is a picture taken in 2001, where Petrick, parallel to the ground, has his left leg up in the air after getting hit from behind by Cincinnati's Ruben Rivera. Petrick has just caught a wide throw from reliever Joe Davenport and paid a price to force Rivera at the plate. Davenport was with the Rockies very briefly, making it easy to check the date. It's April 28, 2001, and time appears to have marched on from September 1999.

Only it didn't march very far. And it was more of a walk, halting at times. That's apparent from one picture and an accompanying inscription in this collection given over to baseball - balls signed by Hall of Famers, a large picture of Petrick taking a stylish swing, his framed 1999 Rockies uniform and even a catcher's mask/helmet with the Rockies logo, resting on a table like an artifact.

The one picture in question was taken in November 2004 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. Petrick and his wife, Kellie, are standing with actor Michael J. Fox. Petrick's baseball career had ended that May, close to home at Triple-A Portland. He had come full circle and had been playing in a stadium where he had played while starring at Glencoe High School in Hillsboro.

After starting the 2004 season at Triple-A Toledo and getting released by that Detroit Tigers farm club - he struck out seven times in 10 hitless at bats.

Petrick said it was something of a relief to be driving cross-country and headed home. His agent called. Petrick said he might consider playing for Triple-A Tacoma or Portland.

An injury caused a job to materialize almost instantly with Portland. Petrick decided he would give it about a month. He played 24 games for that San Diego affiliate, hit .225 and knew it was time for the next phase of his life.

"I'm having to time out my day with medication," Petrick said.

"I'm popping pills in the outfield like they're sunflower seeds."

The pills were for Parkinson's disease, which explains the picture of Petrick and Kellie with Fox, who has had Parkinson's for 17 years.

They are at a benefit for Fox's foundation.

Fox's inscription is brief and poignant.

Ben & Kellie,

We're going to get this done.

All my best,

Michael J. Fox

This keepsake and all the others will soon be boxed up. Petrick, 30, and Kellie, 26, are expecting their first child Oct. 1. They are moving about five miles and will be a couple of houses from Petrick's parents on a relatively secluded street.

"So if I'm taking care of the kid," Petrick said, "and I'm not doing good, I can call for help."

One week from today, Petrick and Kellie will celebrate their third anniversary. They were married on Makena Beach in Hawaii.

The Petricks are naming their daughter Makena, but her middle name isn't certain.

"It was always a dream of mine," Petrick said, "more than to be a baseball player was to be a dad. I can't wait for it, although I'm scared to death. I'm scared to be a new father, and then just the fact that I have to deal with what I deal with and raise a daughter.

"I'm sure there will be some pretty tough times and frustrating times. But I can always lean back on my old baseball times when I was 0-for-17 and struggling. I was just feeling like, 'It'll be OK. It's going to work out.' When I have those days where I can't put a pigtail in her hair because my hands aren't working good, it's going to be OK. She'll learn that Daddy's got some issues."

Promoting awareness

Petrick will be in Denver today and Wednesday on behalf of the Parkinson's Association of the Rockies, which promotes awareness of the disease and assists patients and their families. Two years ago, Petrick made a similar visit. In the interim, he has let his guard down and been more open about discussing Parkinson's effects.

"Over the last year and a half," Petrick said, "I've just come to grips with the fact, and am just more at ease with the fact that I have this illness. And it's OK to let people know that I'm not as strong, I'm not as good at doing things as I was."

In Petrick's case, Parkinson's causes rigidity in his fingers and limbs and slower movement.

"You cherish the moment when your meds are working and you can get dressed or shower within five, 10 minutes instead of a half-hour, 40 minutes," he said.

For Petrick's father, Vern, 62, who also has the disease, the toll is not rigidity, but trembling.

Vern said when he talks to his son, the conversations begin with the same basic questions. How'd you sleep last night? How's your day going? Are you on or off?

"If he's on," Vern said, "his medication's working, he feels great. 'I'm normal.' If he's off, we know what that is. He can't function at all, hardly. I function better than he does when I'm off, but I still don't function well."

Petrick said there's no predictability to good days or bad ones. There is simply a regular element of surprise to Parkinson's, a daily crapshoot about the hours ahead.

Petrick takes a medication called Sinemet. He went on it in 2002, switching from Requip, which made him drowsy and became a real hindrance while playing baseball. While Sinemet works well, it might not work evenly as the disease progresses. And Sinemet can cause dyskinesia, involuntary movements.

"The hard thing is, at my age, I could take enough Sinemet to make me work all day long," Petrick said. "But that's not the smart thing to do in the long run. I've got to try to keep myself on the least amount I can possibly take so I can function and I can have it working for me and be OK for the next 40 years."

Parkinson's affords the opportunity to ponder the long term, because, in itself, it's not fatal. But Petrick is well aware that, "It's what it does to your body - what you can't do."

Like not being active or being able to move well or normally or, ultimately, much at all. And with fatherhood imminent,

Petrick could drift into some actuarial gloom but manages to shove aside the negative thoughts about timetables and life spans and focus more on the research being spearheaded by Fox's foundation and the advances in treating Parkinson's.

"I'm not planning on watching my daughter grow up until she's 5, and then I'm done," Petrick said. "I'm not planning on when she's 10, I'm done. Now, when she's 10 years old, that means I'll have had the disease for 18 years.

"There's a good chance I could be in some pretty rough shape. Or depending on what happens (medically) in the next 10 years, that doesn't (occur).

"I tell my dad, 'You know how lucky we are, because when there's a cure for this disease and we get fixed and we're back, we'll have an outlook on life different than the majority of people out there.' "

Living with uncertainty

In the meantime, there are the matters of daily life to attend to. Petrick received a $495,000 signing bonus when the Rockies took him in the second round in 1995, one pick behind Todd Helton. Over parts of five seasons, Petrick accumulated two years, 125 days of service time in the big leagues, roughly 50 days short of three years. His salary always was close to the major league minimum, which was $300,000 his final season.

"I was smart with my baseball funds and made sure I took care of a rainy day, thank goodness," Petrick said.

He has done some coaching at Glencoe High School and gives hitting lessons. But the uncertainty about how he'll feel on any given day and the need to counteract "a miserable day" with more medicine make "the whole job thing" a daunting prospect.

"When I'm off, I can't really write . . . can't walk very good," he said. "I can't really do the phone thing, because I start stuttering pretty good. It gets to the point where disability's something I've checked into. With the baby coming, we're trying to figure out the best route."

Kellie is an elementary school teacher. She plans to teach in September, moving from first grade to third grade, then take a maternity leave before returning in January to share a teaching position with a friend who's also having a baby.

"She's going to teach in the morning, and I'll teach in the afternoon," Kellie said. "We worked it out that way, because his medication usually works out best in the afternoon, and he usually struggles more in the morning. So this should work out, but you never know."

Eerie coincidence

Seven months before Ben Petrick, 30, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2000, his father, Vern, 62, received the same diagnosis. "It's a strange thing," Ben said.

Vern said there's some comfort in knowing, because Parkinson's is not a terminal illness and there is a chance to possibly benefit from medical research.

"The future of your lifestyle is threatened a lot," Vern said, "and that's scary to think about that. . . . There are a lot of people out there who have maladies, and there's no light at the end of the tunnel. And so I sit here and try to count my blessings for the fact it could be worse - there could be no light.

"The thing I feel about for Ben - I'm in the autumn of my life, and he's in the springtime. So I feel really bad that he may end up having to live like this for the next 30 years somehow, or 40 years. I wish I could take that away from him so he could go out and have a normal . . . so he could finish his baseball career and some of the things that have been taken away from him because of this darned thing."

Cover-up

On Aug. 30, 2000, Petrick homered in the 11th inning off Wayne Gomes to give the Rockies a 5-4 win. But because of Parkinson's, it was difficult for Petrick to move his left arm. There was some rigidity and nowhere near the freedom of movement he had with his right arm.

"I remember running around the bases," Petrick said, "and thinking, 'Move my arm.' I crossed home plate and was going in the dugout and was thinking about trying to give high-fives with my left arm (as well as the right one)."

Petrick was then on a different medication that made him drowsy. He had better results when he changed medicine in 2002.

At the time of his diagnosis, he was playing at Triple-A Colorado Springs. He told infielder Brent Butler, who was his roommate, but Petrick said he didn't really discuss it. Petrick said he mentioned his illness to Mike DeJean and that Todd Helton knew of it. Then-hitting coach Clint Hurdle also knew, but Petrick never talked about his situation and neither did the Rockies.

"I always tried to blow it off, kind of pooh-poohed it," said Petrick, who was playing for Colorado Springs when the Rockies traded him to Detroit for pitcher Adam Bernero on July 13, 2003.

Petrick said a television pilot shot in 2005 for a show that never aired was "kind of the turning point" and helped him "to start to break down the walls" and be more at ease with discussing his illness.

Recollections

On Friday, Chicago Cubs third baseman Aramis Ramirez hit a two-run walk-off homer to beat Milwaukee 6-5. Petrick said he played in Single-A All-Star games with Ramirez and Los Angeles Angels shortstop Orlando Cabrera, both of whom are having very good seasons.

"It's kind of like you have a little bit of jealousy," Petrick said. "Obviously, it's great - I want them to have all kinds of success and just live it up. It's awesome. But you kind of have that 'what-if' and 'why.'

"I don't dwell on it. But when I see things like that and I have those bad times when I'm not feeling good, when I'm physically struggling, and when I'm watching (them play) on TV, you kind of start to have a little pity party just for that little bit. And then you kind of snap out of it."

About Parkinson's

• At a glance: A disorder that affects nerve cells in the part of the brain controlling muscle movement. Symptoms continue and worsen over time. Cause is unknown, and there is no cure. Symptoms are managed with medications and, in some cases, surgery.

• Who's affected: As many as 1 million Americans. About 15 percent of people with Parkinson's are diagnosed before age 50, but incidence increases with age.

• Symptoms: Tremors, stiffness, slow movement, impaired balance and coordination.

• Some who have it: Muhammad Ali, Michael J. Fox, Davis Phinney, Janet Reno.Source: National Parkinson Foundation

etkinj@RockyMountainNews.com

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