Working as a columnist for the Post-Dispatch, I arrived at Busch Stadium extra early one Sunday morning for a day game in July, 2013.
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He (Chris Duncan) sat in the seat next to me. When I asked him how he was coping with everything, Duncan began talking … he was calm, poised, thoughtful, pragmatic, realistic and 100 percent candid.
Chris told me, straight-up, that he wouldn’t survive this cancer. Please don’t misunderstand what I just typed right there; he hadn’t given up, he wasn’t about to surrender, and he had no intention of leaving this world a moment too early.
Duncan quietly analyzed his probabilities. He told me that his goal was to beat the odds — even if he couldn’t defeat the cancer.
Fumbling for anything of substance to offer at that point — heck, I didn’t want to start bawling in front of him — I stammered something about how he’d make history by whipping this insidious disease … and that one day his name would be all over the medical journals as a successful example of how the advanced treatments would greatly extend the lives of those afflicted with the ravages of brain cancer. (Except that my delivery of that message was rambling and weak.)
Duncan gave me a break by making me laugh. His sense of humor was always there, always rich. Even during the most trying of hard times.
“I hope you’re right,” Dunc said that day. “But here’s the situation. I’m looking at an 0-2 count. And I’m staring at combination of Randy Johnson, Sandy Koufax, Clayton Kershaw. All I can do is hang in there, and keep fouling off pitches.”
I replied: hey, those guys lost games. Three of the greatest lefthanders in baseball history — but they weren’t undefeated.
True?
Said Duncan, a lefthanded batter in his playing days: “Yeah, but I suck against lefties. I’ll just foul off those 0-2 pitches for as long as I can.”
And he did.