Rangers big part of Beasley’s cancer battle

In a perfect world, Texas Rangers third-base coach Tony Beasley would have never had Stage 2 rectal cancer, never seen his wife struggle with the diagnosis, never been faced with missing any part of a baseball season, never been confronted with an untimely end.

But Beasley has experienced all of those things the past three weeks, beginning with the diagnosis after initially believing he was dealing with a persistent bout of hemorrhoids, and his idea of a perfect world has been redefined.

“This was a whirlwind,” he said.

Now, in a perfect world, cancer patient Tony Beasley will see chemotherapy do its thing over the next eight weeks, allowing him to avoid radiation, to avoid surgery, and to hear doctors say that he has whipped cancer all without missing a beat at his day job.

“I work by faith, not by sight,” Beasley said. “I’m a Christian man, I’m a strong man of faith, and my belief is that through my faith in God I’ve already been delivered from this. I’ve just got to go through the process.”

Beasley will visit with doctors in Arizona on Monday, and he expects to begin chemotherapy this week. He will have four treatments, one every two weeks, that include wearing a pump for 48 hours.

Two more treatments could be ordered if the mass hasn’t been wiped away, but his doctors are encouraged that they caught the cancer early and that it was contained to his rectum.

But they haven’t minced their words.

The treatments could leave Beasley too fatigued or too queasy to work. He might not be able to swing his fungo bat, and he might find patrolling the third-base coaches box too tall of a task.

That’s the real world as Beasley awaits his first treatment. It’s hardly perfect, but he’s going to give baseball a chance as a way to keep his mind from drifting down dark roads and to be around his baseball family.

“I thought it was a good idea to do it out here to keep my mind active outside of other things than that,” said Beasley, 49. “I have no idea how my body is going to respond, so I’ll just have to pay attention to that. As far as my duties and what I’m going to do, we’ll just have to take that one day at a time right now.”

He spent his first day Sunday at the Surprise Recreation Campus as he normally would, in the clubhouse and on the field, but the embraces with players and his fellow coaches seemed to be a bit tighter and a bit longer.

There was an unusual amount of media attention, which generally is never a good thing for a third-base coach.

But he needed baseball.

“I could have easily done this at home, but I just felt like at home I had too much downtime,” said Beasley, who lives near Richmond, Va. “Half of this battle is mental. It’s keeping my mind occupied and not sitting around to think and allow possibilities and scenarios to creep into your mind. Here I’ll be busy and have other things to think about. There’s so much to keep my mind occupied here. This is good therapy for me.”

So, too, has been the support he has received across baseball, not just the Rangers. Former players he has coached, former teams who have employed him, and rectal cancer survivor Rick Sutcliffe, the former Cy Young winner, have offered their support.

And, as of Sunday, all was as good as could be expected for Beasley. His wife, Stacy, has a better handle on her husband’s prognosis. Beasley went to visit his son, Anthony Jr., who plays baseball at Hardin-Simmons in Abilene, to assure him that nothing grave has happened.

If Beasley has allowed the worst case to enter his thinking, he didn’t say so Sunday. He was back in a Rangers uniform and back on a baseball field, and that’s was his perfect world for a day.

“You have an opportunity to look at things in life in two ways: Obstacle or opportunity,” Beasley said. “I could look at this as an obstacle and be defeated by it. But I choose to look at this as an opportunity.

“I’m a man of faith. I want to be consistent in my faith. When things are good, it’s easy. Now, I’m in the midst of a storm. I have a true opportunity to exemplify faith and consistency, and I want to be consistent with who I say I am.”

This story was originally published February 21, 2016 at 2:09 PM with the headline "Rangers big part of Beasley’s cancer battle."