Manager Ron Gardenhire brought Steve Liddle back into baseball a year and a half ago to be his bench coach on the Tigers staff. But it was Liddle’s wife, Anne, who brought him out of his retirement.
For the year before Liddle came back, he was at his wife’s side, watching her battle breast cancer. He took care of her following the chemotherapy treatments that would sap her strength and put her down for up to a week. He was with her for the oncologist visits, for the six-hour chemotherapy treatments, for the drug treatments every few weeks, for all of it.
And when Steve had a chance to get back into the dugout with Gardenhire, Anne – who had completed her chemotherapy treatments -- was there for him.
“Her oncologist made the decision for me whether I could go back to work, because I'd been retired,” Steve Liddle explained. “Once he said there's no reason why not, Anne told me, 'Hey, Steve, it's something you love to do, and you're good at it. Go and do it.'”
Thanks to Major League Baseball’s Honorary Bat Girl program, Anne Liddle is now a part of the game. She’s the Tigers’ Honorary Bat Girl in support of the annual Going to Bat Against Breast Cancer initiative to raise awareness and money for research.
For the first time since the program’s inception in 2009, MLB partnered with CrowdRise by GoFundMe to host a fundraising contest for each of the 30 Honorary Bat Girls to raise money for Stand Up to Cancer and Susan G. Komen. Each story and a chance to donate can be found at the Honorary Bat Girl website.
The program is the reason why the Liddles are telling their story.
“As a husband and as a parent, I feel like I can protect Anne. But it's hard to fight the unseen, something you can't see,” he said. “It's the most helpless feeling that I've ever had in my life. You can't help. All I can do is comfort her. The disease is just that tough.
“It's a life-changing type of ordeal, but she's very positive in her faith in God and she worries more about me and the children than anything else.”
Anne Liddle is a living example of the value of early detection and routine mammograms. That’s how her tumor was found two years ago. Upon examination, she was diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer, a more aggressive form due to the presence of a protein that promotes the growth of cancer cells.
“The word ‘cancer’ often brings death to mind,” Anne wrote. “We assured our children that there was a treatment for my cancer, and it had been caught early, due to my annual mammogram screenings. Still, it was tough. We all grieve in different ways -- there was silence, tears and questions. We prayed together and eventually, we all began to deal with the diagnosis in our own way.”
It was a jolt to a couple that was enjoying life in retirement in Tennessee, as well as to their two sons. But the routine mammogram was a blessing.
“I think the fact that it was early detection, that's what got it before it had a chance to spread,” Steve Liddle said. “They're able to genetically type these cancers nowadays. The American Cancer Society has done a great job of making sure the protocols are whatever treatment, whatever cancers, are standard.”
The treatments were as aggressive as the cancer -- six sessions of chemotherapy through a port, and 15 doses of a chemo drug every few weeks. Doctors held off on surgery until they knew the treatment was having an impact on the tumor and that her blood count was high enough to avoid infection.
When the last of her procedures took place last month, Steve took time off to be there for it. That was the weekend Hall of Famer Alan Trammell filled in during the Tigers’ visit to Minnesota last month.
Anne Liddle is now cancer-free. The Liddles are now full of thankfulness.
“It's just another curveball you're thrown,” Steve said. “It's like the line in 'The Shawshank Redemption': You either get busy living or get busy dying. It kind of depends on how you approach it. With her faith in God, she always knew that regardless of what happened there would be a positive outcome for us.”