It’s never easy to hear hard news, let alone deliver it.
But that’s exactly what Indians pitcher Carlos Carrasco had to do after learning he had leukemia earlier this season.
The 32-year-old had Cleveland manager Terry Francona call a team meeting just a few days before Major League Baseball’s “Stand Up To Cancer” event in July. That’s where he revealed his diagnosis to his teammates.
“When they got the news, the whole room went silent,” Carrasco writes via the Players’ Tribune. “It was the quietest I’ve ever heard our clubhouse. No one said anything. It seemed like no one even moved or made a sound with their shoes or coughed or anything. It was just complete silence.”
After a trainer detailed the treatment, several players approached him to share their support.
“You’re not alone in this,” shortstop Francisco Lindor told him. “We are going to do this, and fight through this, together. … I love you, brother.”
Second baseman Jason Kipnis also took the news particularly hard. He’d frequently check in on Carrasco’s progress, oftentimes telling him, “We’re here for you.”
“And I could really feel it,” Carrasco writes. “I could feel that love and support from my teammates on that day, and on every day since.”
On top of messages of hope from past and present ballplayers, Carrasco received words of encouragement from all over. Even WWE superstar Roman Reigns reached out to him via Twitter.
“It just went on and on. And it never got old,” Carrasco writes. “I just constantly felt an outpouring of love and support. It kept me feeling positive, like it was only a matter of time before I was fully healthy.”
