Earlier this morning, the baseball blogosphere received some sad and startling news about one of our comrades: Dave Cameron of Fangraphs and USS Mariner has been diagnosed with cancer.
“I’m in one of those situations. Last week I was informed that I have Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a particularly nasty member of the cancer family. History has given my doctors all kinds of data about cure rates and life expectancy, and statistical analysis is helping them decided just what kind of chemotherapy I’ll be taking in a few hours, which I’m really thankful for.
(snip)
Statistics can be powerful, useful tools, and at times, they can be critical to understanding what to do. Other times, though, they’re useless, and so, for this situation, I say screw the data; I choose hope instead.”
Although I’ve neither met nor spoken to Dave (save a tweet here and there), he’s been a huge inspiration to me in my writing. After reading his hopeful piece at Fangraphs, he’s an inspiration for another reason entirely.
On behalf of everyone at Fire Brand of the American League, we wish you much luck in defeating this illness. Seriously, kick it’s ass, and get better soon!
To donate blood and platelets, you can go to the Red Cross website to find a location nearest to you.