Rowan pitcher honored as 'most courageous athlete'

It was only a third of an inning - seven or eight pitches by Richie Suarez's count. In the moment, the righthander from Rowan University was thinking only about the hitter, an innate quality that serves every pitcher well.

"Keep this ball low, keep the slider away, got to get this lefty out," Suarez remembered.

Dylan Johannink, his teammate and close friend, understood something much greater was happening. He realized that Suarez had climbed a mountain in order to step onto that mound at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., late last February.

When Randolph-Macon's Christian Sanderson grounded out to second base to end the fourth inning, Johannink greeted Suarez with a giant bear hug as the pitcher returned to the Rowan bench.

"I kind of realized then, 'Oh, wow, this was four years coming,' " Suarez said.

It was only one-third of an inning. One out and Suarez got credit for Rowan's 6-4 victory. Never has a 'W' been more appropriately placed next to a pitcher's name.

Suarez had not just beaten Randolph-Macon. He had beaten cancer. He had brushed back a condition known as avascular necrosis (AVN), which forced both of his hips to be replaced at 19 years old after they had "turned into marshmallows." He had returned to the mound after 31/2 years of chemotherapy that had dropped his weight to 115 pounds.

So, yeah, he had done quite a bit more than throw one-third of an inning in order to get a victory in his first collegiate appearance, which is why Suarez was also among the celebrity athletes in attendance Friday night at the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association annual awards dinner. He was being honored as the most courageous athlete, an award big-league pitchers Jim Abbott and Tommy John had received in the past.

Suarez's college pitching debut was supposed to take place in 2011. He had gone from throwing about 75 m.p.h. as a sophomore at Eastern High School in Voorhees to 88 by his senior year, according to Vikings coach Rob Christ.

"He wasn't going to just play at Rowan," Christ said. "He was going to be a dominant pitcher."

Then Suarez's life changed a couple of days before the scheduled start of his freshman year at the Division III school in Glassboro. He thought he had mononucleosis or a stomach flu through much of the summer, but was too busy to worry about it.

"I was playing American Legion ball," he said. "I was an 18-year-old kid. I was taking Advil and Dayquil and trying to ignore I was sick."

When the headaches became too intense to ignore, Suarez went to one doctor and then another before a battery of tests revealed he had leukemia. His father, Ralph, who pitched one season in the Phillies' farm system in 1978, and his mother, Denise, were devastated but determined as Suarez started intense chemotherapy treatments at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

"In the beginning, you can't even function," Denise Suarez said. "But you have to keep that face on. He had the best survival chance of so many of the kids we saw at CHOP."

"Survival, that's a word that takes your breath away," Ralph Suarez said. "You think as a parent, 'What's the worst?' Obviously losing your child was the worst. Having cancer, you're paralyzed in fear and you don't want to pass it on to him."

The initial news from doctors was that Suarez had an 80 percent chance of survival, and after he received an additional form of chemotherapy, that number rose to 89 percent.

"Really, I was just trying to get back to normal," Suarez said. "So for me, normal was playing baseball and going to school. That's all I tried to do."

After four months, the cancer was in remission, but in March 2011, he was told he had AVN, a rare side effect from the chemotherapy that destroys bone tissue.

"At first, it was only in my thighs and shins," Suarez said. "I had a lot of knee pain. It was killing me. It didn't spread to my hips and knees until Dec. 23, 2011."

Suarez wanted to know if he'd still be able to play baseball.

"Let's make sure you can walk again," his doctor told him. "That destroyed me. That was rough. I finally felt like I was getting back . . . and then they hit me with that."

Double hip replacements followed. His weight slipped to 115 pounds.

Two summers ago, Suarez returned to the mound pitching for Cherry Hill in the Tri-County League. Christ, his high school coach, went to watch him, but wasn't expecting much.

"I went out and saw him and I was just amazed," Christ said. "He wasn't where he was before, but he was pretty darn close. I told him, 'Richie, you still have the ability to pitch in college.' I think he thought it was [not true] and I was just trying to be nice and make him feel better."

Eventually, Suarez told former Rowan coach Juan Ranero he was ready to return.

"I didn't even know he was playing during the summer," Ranero said. "I thought he was done. The hip thing really got to him and he had started focusing on his studies. He wasn't around as much. He said it was too hard to be around. I said, 'Let's give this a try.' "

Richie Suarez joined the team in the fall and then made his official return in that February game down in Virginia. He got one out and a victory. He eventually appeared in eight more games and finished 3-0 with a 4.05 ERA. He's getting ready to pitch one more season at Rowan before applying for medical school. He had been a math major, but his winning battle with cancer changed his mind.

@brookob