PHILADELPHIA — There was a time not long ago when Corey Phelan started his days at the Phillies complex in Clearwater, Fla., where he was rehabbing an elbow injury. Phelan would wake up at 7 a.m., eat breakfast, and change into his practice gear. Then he would do soft tissue prep, maybe some fielding practice and a workout.
A few months later, everything has changed. Phelan now wakes up at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York at 10 or 11 a.m. A team of doctors comes in shortly after to let him know how his blood count looks, and to prep him for chemo treatments, which he receives three times a week. He’ll eat lunch, go for a walk, and sit back down in his bed, and stay there throughout the rest of the evening, watching the Phillies game until he falls asleep.
It is not what Phelan, a 19-year-old left-handed reliever in the Phillies’ minor league system, was expecting his 2022 to look like. Or his 2023, or his 2024. Two years ago, the Phillies signed Phelan as a non-drafted free agent. A year later, he made his minor league debut. And just under a year after that, in April of 2022, after just five rookie-league games, Phelan was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His doctors have told him that he will receive treatment for two years.
Phelan has no history of cancer in his family. He had no reason to believe he would ever get it, and he wouldn’t have even known that he had it if not for a trip to the emergency room. The morning before a routine doctor’s appointment, Phelan passed out in the bathroom of his Florida hotel. Once he arrived at the hospital, the doctors ran a CT scan on his chest, which revealed a 9-inch tumor. They tested to see if it was cancerous, and on April 17, Easter Sunday, Phelan was told he would not be going to low-A Clearwater.
The transition from an extremely active lifestyle to a completely sedentary one isn’t easy for anyone, let alone a professional athlete. Phelan likes to watch baseball, but it can sometimes be tough for him. It is easy to feel like he’s on the outside looking in, like the sport has moved on without him.
“It just makes me want to get up and go do something active or go play,” he said. “And I can’t.”
Since his diagnosis, Phelan has heard from teammates, coaches, and players. A few weeks ago, when the Phillies were in New York, team president Dave Dombrowski, farm director Preston Mattingly, director of Integrative Baseball Performance Rob Segedin, and director of minor league training facilities and equipment Joe Cynar visited him in the hospital. It is all appreciated, but Phelan said one gesture has stood out among the rest.
It started with an Instagram story. Phillies minor leaguer Daniel Brito saw that his friend was in the hospital, and decided to check in. When Phelan explained why he was there, it brought Brito back to his own recent health scare. The shock Phelan experienced from hearing his diagnosis reminded Brito, 24, how he felt when he collapsed on the field in a Triple-A game in Rochester, N.Y., last July and woke up in the hospital after suffering a brain hemorrhage.
The two players began talking every few days. Brito is from Venezuela, and Phelan is from Long Island. There is a language barrier, but Brito leans on Google translate when he needs to. And sometimes Phelan will sprinkle in rudimentary Spanish of his own.
“I hope you feel better soon. We’re all waiting for you,” Brito texted Phelan a few days ago.
“Gracias,” Phelan responded.
Phelan met Brito a few months ago in spring training. He was in awe of his teammate, who only a few months earlier had undergone two brain surgeries, and was now taking ground balls and hitting off a tee under the Florida sun. The second baseman is back on Lehigh Valley’s roster, although he began the season on the injured list.
“It’s just nice to hear from someone that has been through something so difficult, and is playing again,” Phelan said.
When Brito was in the hospital, he had the support of his then-fiancé and now wife, Anyelis. He would ask her if she really thought he could make it back to the minor leagues, and she said that she did. Now, Brito wants to provide that same kind of reassurance to Phelan.
“Everybody has a fire within themselves,” Brito said in Spanish. “And there were times when I felt like my fire was going away. I tried to keep it alive while I was going through my battle, and now I’m trying to keep that fire alive for Corey. Don’t shut it down.”
Phelan will try not to. He’s bringing the same energy he brought to baseball to his new routine. He makes sure to take his walks every day. He gets 12 hours of sleep a night because the chemotherapy makes him tired. It’s not hitting 94 mph on a radar gun, but it is a challenge.
Two years from now, maybe he will find himself back on a mound. His biggest problem then would be getting out of a bases-loaded jam, and wouldn’t that be a wonderful problem to have.
