BOSTON — Rocco Baldelli is the miracle man of the Tampa Bay Rays’ miracle season.
Only a few short months ago, the right fielder, who once captured baseball fans’ fancy with his Joe DiMaggio- style grace, struggled just to get out of bed. Take batting practice? Forget about it. Shag flyballs? He wished.
But there he was Monday afternoon, starting for the Rays at famed Fenway Park in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. There he was, smashing an enormous three-run homer in the eighth, nailing down the Rays’ 9-1 victory.
“Everything I do this year is pretty special, coming from the condition I was in in spring training,” the Rhode Island native said. “So everything I get now is pretty rewarding. Especially to do it here in front of family and friends was really nice.”
This past spring training, Baldelli held a tearful news conference announcing that he would start the year on the disabled list as he struggled to recover from four years of nagging injuries and mysterious illness.
The illness turned out to be a form of mitochondrial disease. It’s caused by malfunctioning mitochondria in the cells, starving muscles of the energy needed to function. Because the disease can affect any organ or body system at any age, it’s often misdiagnosed. Symptoms can include blindness, deafness, strokes, seizures, cardiac disease, liver disease and diabetes.
“In the course of one year, I went from being about as athletic as I had ever been to not being able to hit batting practice,” Baldelli said. “If that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will. All I knew was that it had to be something pretty serious to do something like that.”
Three years ago, Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd, unaware of Baldelli’s disease at the time, made it clear that Baldelli was a player he coveted. This season, five months and two rehab assignments after his diagnosis, Baldelli was reinstated to the Rays’ lineup on Aug. 10 at Safeco Field in Seattle. He played in 46 games down the stretch, hitting .263 with four home runs and 13 RBIs.
Rays players get a little choked up talking about him.
“When I saw him come out and play at Safeco, it was awesome,” pitcher Andy Sonnanstine said. “It was like watching a son go out and play. Everything he’s been through and dealt with, it’s just amazing.”
Footnotes.
How hot is Rays center fielder B.J. Upton? Consider this stat: Monday, he hit his fifth homer in 28 at-bats during the postseason. In the regular season, he hit nine homers in 531 at-bats. . . . The Rays are in a good place. Since the ALCS converted to a best-of-seven series in 1985, 13 of 18 teams that took a 2-1 lead advanced to the World Series. However, Boston trailed the Indians 3-1 last year and came back to win. . . . When the Red Sox finally scored a run in the seventh, it saved them the embarrassment of being shut out at home in the postseason for the first time in 90 years. The last time it happened was in Game 5 of the 1918 World Series to the Cubs.
