Strength to Endure
Hear former major league baseball player Dave Dravecky’s story of finding hope against cancer.
As my wife and I sat in the examining room waiting for the results of the MRI, which would determine the future of my baseball career, we heard the doctors in the hallway mention the word “cancer.”
I remember praying, “God, please give us the strength to endure.”
It was a very significant prayer because I would need strength for all that was ahead.
Early years
I grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, and, like many kids in the Midwest, I enjoyed playing team sports—basketball, football, track, and especially baseball.
After high school, my baseball coach told me, “Hey Dave, I really think you can play at the next level.”
There was just one problem: not one university in the entire country recruited me to play for them—that is, until after I had a notable game as a walk-on at nearby Youngstown State.
Walk-on
While pitching a doubleheader, I threw a no-hitter against the Akron Zips. Not long after, the school offered me a scholarship.
Toward the end of my senior year, I was selected in the 21st round by the Pittsburgh Pirates, which launched my professional career.
After working my way up to AAA, I was later traded to the San Diego Padres, which sent me back down to AA in Amarillo, Texas. While it was disappointing, this proved vital for my development. Little did I know that the coach, Eddie Watt, a retired major league pitcher, was a master of teaching the art of pitching. That year, I went 15-5 and was awarded the Minor League Pitcher of the Year.
Big-league shot
The next year, I moved up to AAA, and six weeks later, my coach called me on my daughter’s birthday and said, “You’re going to the big leagues.”
That was June 8, 1982.
My first two weeks in the majors, I thought everyone who came to the plate was Babe Ruth, and I struggled to find my footing. At one point, the manager walked out to the mound and said, “You either get your act together, or I’m sending you back down.”
Long story short, I got my act together. I finished that season, and the next year, I played well enough to earn a spot on the All-Star team, and the Padres also went to the World Series. In 1987, I was traded to the San Francisco Giants, and I was pitching my best baseball ever.
Significant problems
One of the greatest honors for a starting pitcher is to get the ball on opening day for your team. In 1988, I was given the ball for the Giants vs. the Dodgers.
You couldn’t have painted a better picture for opening day. It’s me versus Fernando Valenzuela, and Dodger Stadium was packed with 55,000 people.
That day we defeated the Dodgers 5-1. I threw a complete game, giving up only four hits.
It seemed I was on my way to having a CY Young year. Yet by midseason, I started having significant arm problems, unrelated to a lump that started growing in my left arm.
Suddenly, I could not pitch.
Getting surgery
I had surgery for a partially torn bicep tendon, and I missed most of the season and ended with just two wins, compared to the previous season, when I had seven.
The small lump that had developed on the outside of my left arm now grew to half the size of a golf ball. The doctors told me, “This is not normal,” and they quickly scheduled me for an MRI.
I began fearing the worst—for my career and my future.
How I found hope, strength and peace
Back when I was playing AA ball in Amarillo, I learned about something even more significant than pitching. A teammate named Byron Ballard challenged me to do something I had never done before: read the Bible.
I would say I believed in God, but as I started reading, some passages jumped off the page, especially the book of John, where it says we need to be born again.
I remember Byron explaining it this way: “If you are born once, you’re going to die twice. But if you’re born twice, you’ll only die once.” I realized there was a new spiritual birth that I had yet to experience.
I decided to become a follower of Jesus, to accept his forgiveness for my sins. It felt significant to experience a spiritual rebirth and become a new creation.
When I accepted Jesus as my Savior, hope arrived in my life. And that hope would sustain my wife and me through all the challenges that lay ahead—including cancer.
Getting a diagnosis
As my wife and I waited for the doctors to come into the hospital room that October day in 1988, we braced for the worst.
We soon learned I had fibrosarcoma, an aggressive tumor, wrapped in a desmoid tumor in my pitching arm.
When they shared my diagnosis, I stood up and walked out of the room. I couldn’t believe it was real. It was like, “Who are you talking to?” I was there physically, but my mind went to a different place.
There was more difficult news: “Apart from a miracle, you will never pitch again,” my doctor said.
When I prayed, “God give us the strength to endure,” I had no idea how fitting this request would be.
Surgery and healing
In my first surgery, they did everything they could to remove the tumor along with 50% of my deltoid muscle, which meant I lost 95% use of that muscle.
Early on, I remember thinking, “If I can get healthy enough, I want to try to make a comeback.”
And my doctor said, “Dave, I hope you are just able to play catch with your son in the backyard.”
It was a 10-month process of healing, and intensive physical therapy and rehab. But I healed well enough to attempt a comeback, playing in the minor leagues. Amazingly, I moved up to the major leagues a few months later.
A second chance
That’s how I found myself the starter of the Padres vs. the Cincinnati Reds. I remember thinking, “Thank you, God, for giving me a second chance.”
After pitching eight innings, and with the help of Steve Rojan as closer, we won 4-3.
I was on a mountain top at the press conference. I remember saying, “I need to take an opportunity to give praise and glory to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for giving me another chance, and to thank all of the people God put in my life to help make this happen.”
After the mountain top, just five days later, I dropped into the valley. I was pitching in the sixth inning vs. the Montreal Expos. I threw a fastball, and my left arm snapped in half. I crumpled to the ground in pain.
The cancer had come back.
Afterward
As I lay on the ground, and in the press conference afterward, I wasn’t dejected.
Somehow, I felt joyful—because nobody expected me to be there.
Was it hard having my pitching career end, getting cancer, and eventually having my arm amputated? Yeah, I struggled. But there was a deep-rooted joy that isn’t just a smile and laughter. It was a joy to know whose hands I was in and being cared for during the hardest experiences of my life.
Endurance for others
Those same hands helped me through months of clinical depression and anger counseling in the years afterward.
But God gave me the strength to endure, as I had prayed for. And it wasn’t just for me.
In 1991, my wife, Jan, and I started Endurance, a nonprofit to help others find strength and hope in hard times.
Our ministry provides encouragement and spiritual support to people facing cancer, illness, grief, depression, and suffering. We offer resources at no cost to families who are going through cancer. We want them to know that there are people who care about them and want to help them in their struggles.
Each year, we send at least 1,200 boxes to people. Everyone who contacts the ministry receives prayer, often with a handwritten note of encouragement. We are so grateful to offer hope to others in difficult times.
Advice for others
If you are a follower of Jesus and you find yourself facing cancer, read the Scriptures daily. They help take you closer to the heart of Jesus, who was certainly acquainted with suffering.
Also, find a safe community that cares for you where you can express every emotion and not fear being judged, condemned, or fixed.
For those who don’t have a relationship with God, the reality is that we are all searching for hope.
If you know someone who is a Christian, ask them to tell you their story, and consider the depth of love that God has not just for them, but also for you.
God loves us so much that “he sent his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life,” as it says in John 3:16.
Strength to endure
All our lives will come to an end on this earth. The question is, where will you spend eternity?
The greatest gift in the universe is salvation through Jesus. It’s the hope—the hope that has arrived. And it’s here for me, and it’s here for all who will receive it when we accept his love and forgiveness.
That’s how we can find the strength to endure life’s most difficult challenges.
A prayer for hope
If you would like to begin a relationship with God, you can pray this prayer now:
“God, I need your strength to endure. I want you to be my God. I confess that I am a sinner, and that I need you. Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I accept your forgiveness and the new life you offer. Help me find new hope, strength and peace for what I’m facing. Be my Lord and Savior. Amen.”
If you have prayed this prayer, you have opened the door of your heart to God. He can help bring strength and hope into your life. Click on a link below for helpful next steps.
