Miami Marlins pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. details ongoing battle with cancer
Miami Marlins pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. revealed this week that he worked the entire 2021 season while battling prostate cancer, a diagnosis that few in the organization were aware of.
Stottlemyre, 57, confirmed to the Miami Herald this week that he was diagnosed in February and had his prostate removed earlier this month.
He intends to keep working and recently signed a contract to return for a fourth season as Marlins pitching coach in 2022.
Stottlemyre’s family has a history of cancer. His father, Mel Sr., a longtime big-league pitching coach, died in 2019 after a battle with blood cancer. Mel Jr.’s younger brother, Jason, died from leukemia at age 11.
Stottlemyre learned of his cancer diagnosis after arriving for spring training earlier this year.
“I had elevated PSAs [prostate specific antigen] over the past five years, and my doctors continued to monitor them,” he said. “Over [last] winter, I just didn’t feel right. I was wiped out. I knew something was wrong. When I got to spring training, my numbers had escalated to the point that I knew I had to see the urologist.”
Tests revealed he had medium-grade cancer [identified in testing as Gleason 7] and he was told surgery would be inevitable. He juggled biopsies and doctors visits with his Marlins duties in February, March and April.
He said the only people in the Marlins organization that knew of his diagnosis were manager Don Mattingly, CEO Derek Jeter and general manager Kim Ng.
“I didn’t want anyone to know,” Stottlemyre said. “I didn’t want people feeling sorry for me.”
He wanted to get the surgery done during the All-Star break, but changed his mind and opted to wait until after the season ended.
“I didn’t want to stop,” he said. “We talked about the risk of waiting, and because it was a relatively slower-growing cancer, they inevitably decided it was OK to have it after the season. I wanted to do it during the All-Star break, but I wanted to be there for my pitchers so I chose to do it after the season.
“Mentally there was no way I was not going to get through the season. I have seen my dad and brother go through this and there was no way I wasn’t getting through it. I can’t say my mom was thrilled with it.”
One of the most difficult challenges, Stottlemyre said, was resisting any temptation to tell members of his pitching staff about his diagnosis.
Several of the Marlins young pitchers have flourished under his tutelage, including Sandy Alcantara, Pablo Lopez and Trevor Rogers.
“They’re like my sons and I probably owe it to them,” he said. “I didn’t want to distract them. ”
Stottlemyre, who used the same physician that treated his father (Dipen Parekh), said his entire prostate needed to be removed during the Oct. 6 procedure, as well as lymph nodes to prevent future cancer recurrences.
“I can’t tell you I have a clean bill of health, but they have reiterated many times that the surgery went great, they took my lymph nodes out,” he said. “My insides are obviously a mess. It’s going to take months to recover, but I feel good, I’m walking five miles a day and I’m going to stay in shape and I am going to return to Miami.”
Mel Jr’s brother, former big-league pitcher Todd Stottlemyre, flew in from Arizona to be by his brother’s side during the recent surgery in Miami.
Todd Stottlemyre said Mel texted him last spring and asked: “Are you busy?”
Todd said his brother never sent a text like that, and it made him worry considering the family’s history of cancer.
“I had given my younger brother Jason a bone marrow transplant at the age of 15, he rejected it and then he’s gone and I carried that weight,” Todd Stottlemyre said. “I then went through the experience with my father’s passing. For a couple days after Mel told me I was beat up. Here we go again. Our mentality is we have been given this because we know how to fight it.
“To watch him this year was so inspiring, knowing he had cancer, knowing he didn’t tell anyone. Not knowing the outcome. To still do what he did this season and talk to no one in the outside world is crazy to me.”
Stottlemyre said he wants to be a spokesperson for prostate cancer and plans to raise awareness about a condition that kills more than 300,000 men annually.
He has spoken with former Yankees manager Joe Torre, who is also a prostate cancer survivor, and plans on making it his mission to remind men to have their prostate checked.
“It brought me to my knees,” Stottlemyre said. “There were some crying moments there. I want to be a spokesperson for this and remind people getting their prostate checked can save their life.”
Stottlemyre previously was the pitching coach of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Seattle Mariners before joining the Marlins in December 2018. He was a pitcher for the Kansas City Royals in 1990, his only season in the majors.
Miami Herald sports writer Barry Jackson contributed to this report.
This story was originally published October 29, 2021 at 9:15 AM.
