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.
