Of paths beyond bases - His playing career derailed, a coach gives back

By Nick Grabbe
Staff Writer

Published on June 23, 2006

YEARS after his professional baseball career was curtailed by cancer, Kevin Graber is back in the game, teaching 15- and 16-year-olds the right way to bat, pitch and field.

As the volunteer manager of the Mickey Mantle League team in Amherst, he's teaching teenage boys more than how to play baseball correctly. He's providing an example of overcoming adversity - teenage sob stories just don't cut it when compared to cancer.

'I'd like to have a dozen more of him,' said Stanley Ziomek, longtime president of Amherst Youth Baseball. 'He's very knowledgeable and committed, he's got enthusiasm with the kids and is really teaching them about the game.'

Ziomek had never heard of Graber when the 35-year-old approached him at the Community Fair last year. Graber told Ziomek he used to be a professional baseball player and offered to give a clinic for young players.

When Ziomek asked him if he'd like to manage the Mickey Mantle team, Graber responded, 'What's that?'

Actually, Graber had a lot of experience managing. Nine years ago, when his illness prevented him from playing, Graber said he became the youngest manager of a professional baseball team in the U.S.

This is the first time that youth baseball players in Amherst have had a manager with pro experience, Ziomek said. And their parents appreciate that the boys have access to someone special.

'He has a curriculum,' said Bill Hazelett of Pelham. 'His practices are very organized and systematic. The kids are quiet and pay attention. They know he knows what he's talking about.'

Early confidence

'I'd still be playing if they'd let me,' said Graber. 'It was quite a journey. Sometimes I think back and ask myself, 'How good could I have been if everything had been smooth sailing?''

In 1992, Graber was a cocky player and had cause for confidence. He was a shortstop in his senior year at the College of St. Rose in his native Albany, N.Y., and had been a three-time conference all-star. His team had been to the Division II World Series the year before, and he anticipated being drafted by a pro team.

But he started getting strange rashes on his shins and had trouble sleeping. He had severe rushes of blood to his head. 'It felt like someone was hanging me upside down,' Graber said.

He played through the pain. One day during the playoffs, he beat out an infield hit and felt like he was going to pass out. When he took himself out of the game, his manager didn't even know he had been sick.

Graber went to the hospital, had a biopsy, and learned that he had lymphoma. There was a malignant tumor the size of a grapefruit growing under his sternum and around his heart and lungs.

He was in intensive care for two weeks. He underwent 1ﾴ years of chemotherapy and radiation, which he described as 'beyond painful.' He lost all his hair, and his weight dropped from 185 to 145.

But the cancer had been detected soon enough that it did not reach his bone marrow. The tumor responded to treatment and shrank to nothing. He's now in long-term remission and hasn't seen an oncologist in 18 months.

Hopping a flight

Graber took a job doing public relations for the hospital in Albany where he was treated. He lifted weights, started running and played in a town league, but developed blood clots and had trouble swinging a bat.

He took a job coaching at a small college in California, then coached a summer league team in Albany, but still wanted to play. He learned from a college teammate that a team in Australia might be looking for an American player. Graber made a phone call pretending to be an agent but touted his own abilities. He got a tryout.

After a 14-hour flight to Brisbane, he was picked up at the airport and taken right to the field, where he was in the lineup for the Pine Rivers Rapids that night. He hit a home run in his first at-bat, and was later elevated to the Brisbane Bandits. He hit a combined .340 in 35 games in Australia.

He was invited to the Chicago Cubs' minor-league spring training complex, and signed with the Minnesota Loons, later called the Southern Minny Stars. He hit .311 in 1996, playing second and short and also working as director of public relations and marketing. It was his job to sell ads on the outfield fences to local businesses.

At this point, his comeback attracted national attention. The Today show, CNN and USA Today did stories on him. But his medical problems weren't over.

In 1997 he noticed pains in his side. He thought his cancer had returned, but it turned out to be complications from his radiation treatments. A big chunk of his rib cage had to be removed a month before the season started, requiring him to learn to throw sidearm and adjust his swing.

Greg Olson, a former Atlanta Braves catcher and one of the team's owners, noticed that Graber was 'fiercely organized,' and offered him the job of manager at the age of 27. Many of his players were older, including former major league pitcher Juan Berenguer, but Graber did well and was named Prairie League Manager of the Year.

He later managed the Double A Adirondack Lumberjacks, still doing public relations on the side, but by this time he was married and a father.

He got two jobs in sports information that led, in 2000, to a job at Amherst College. Graber was sports information director there for five years, playing no baseball but picking up several writing awards. Since September he has been director of alumni and parent programs, and he and his wife Tina have three children.

'Taking one'

Graber's Mickey Mantle teams specialize in getting hit by pitches, which he calls 'wearing pitches.' He's taught the players how to turn when a pitch is coming right at them so that they don't get hurt. Players on last year's 15-4 team got hit by pitches 25 times, leading to 21 runs, he said. In the first game this year against Easthampton, three players 'took one for the team' and Amherst won 4-3.

His practice plans look like meeting agendas. At 6, eight elements of baserunning; at 6:25, bunting and two-strike approach; at 6:30, hitting stations; at 7, 'put in 1st and 3d early delay;' at 7:10, 'put in fake drag/steal 3d;' at 7:20, review of signs.

Parent Bill Hart said Graber helps the boys execute moves without thinking. His wife Vicki said their son really likes to think about strategy, and the manager obliges. 'Kevin has the kind of enthusiasm you don't get with the normal teen experience,' she said.

Desiree Bohl, the mother of one of last year's players, went further. 'The kids learned so much and you have been by far the best coach they have ever had in Amherst baseball,' she wrote to Graber.

He had never had to work with pitchers before, so he studied videos and hung out with Amherst College coach Bill Thurston, an expert on pitching mechanics. Although Graber's Mickey Mantle teams have been successful, he said wins and losses are less important than developing baseball skills.

'The true fun in baseball isn't slapping and telling jokes, it's the satisfaction of improving skills and playing the game well,' he said.

Sometimes, he gets invitations to play in the local over-30 league. 'But I'm afraid of not being as good as I'm accustomed to being,' he said. He's taken up tennis instead.

He regards his work managing the Mickey Mantle team as a form of public service. 'It's important to be an involved member of the community,' Graber said.

Nick Grabbe can be reached at ngrabbe@gazettenet.com.