It takes a lot of courage and perseverance to successfully play major league baseball when growing up in Australia. But that wasn’t Liam Hendriks’ greatest challenge. The pitcher has just announced that he had won his fight against cancer.
The star reliever for the Chicago White Sox revealed on January 9 that he has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In the United States, the risk of death from this disease is approximately 25%, depending on many factors and the specific type of cancer, which in Hendriks’ case has not been disclosed.
“The past five months have been the fastest and longest of my life. […]. Being able to heal has been one of the most moving things I’ve done,” he wrote on social media last week.
Hendriks’ story inspires young baseball players everywhere. He is by far the best Australian player in baseball history. We count on the fingers of one hand those who have managed to make a career of more than five years in the league, including, for the nostalgic, the former Expo giant format with the goatee Graeme Lloyd.
Hendrik was never drafted. The Twins signed him to a contract as soon as he turned 18, as stipulated in the rules surrounding international players.
He is solid, the Australian
And the team quickly realized they didn’t care that he wasn’t born in a country famous for baseball. He was really good, the Aussie. In four years (which is pretty quick for a pitcher), he went through five minor league levels to reach the majors.
From the age of 22 to 25, Hendriks still began to experience some difficulties and his star began to fade. Everything then had to start over for him.
In 2013, when he was 25, the Twins released him. The Cubs claimed it. Ten days later, the Cubs released him and the Orioles claimed him.
A year later, the Orioles decided they didn’t want him anymore and the Blue Jays claimed him.
The following year, the Jays traded him to the Royals, for not much.
Two months later, the Royals in turn traded him for not much… to the Blue Jays.
The following year, the Jays traded him to Oakland for Jesse Chavez, a good little pitcher, nothing more. This exchange turned out to be a disaster for Toronto.
Maybe time to do something else
So, to recap, between 2007 and 2016, Hendriks played for 16 teams in six different tiers. Normally, it’s a sign that it’s time to do something else in life. Especially since he was 27 years old. But the gunner did not let go.
The A’s saw something in him. And they were patient. For three years, the reliever slowly regained his composure by throwing a little in the majors and a little in the minors. And as is often the case with the A’s, they had seen right in a player rejected everywhere else.
At 30 and 31, he not only became a good pitcher again, but was described by many analysts as the best reliever in the world. He was even made too good for Oakland to afford. Hendriks then signed a three-year, $38 million deal with the Chicago White Sox and continued to dominate in 2021 and last year.
AFP
Liam Hendriks in 2022 with the White Sox
Go habs go
Hendriks also has quite special ties with Quebec, which he does not hesitate to show. He is a Canadian maniac. It was his wife, Kristi, who spent time in Quebec in her youth, who initiated him. She is a huge CH fan herself.
But for the baseball player, this passion has become an “obsession”. Hendriks even jokes that his wife made her worst decision by converting him to the Canadian. “All I do is watch as many games as I can,” he once told NHL Network.
At the 2015 Winter Classic, he flew 15 hours from Australia to attend the game, because Montreal was there.
Also in 2015, when he wore the Blue Jays uniform, the whole team went to see the Maple Leafs. While all his teammates proudly wore the Leafs jersey, you could see him in the dressing room with his cap and his Canadiens jersey (see below).
Photo taken from Twitter
The Blue Jays visiting a Leafs game in 2015 with Liam Hendriks, bottom left, in his Canadiens jersey and cap.
On July 7, it was time for the game to end between the Tigers and the White Sox, because Hendriks could not miss the draft and the first choice of the Canadian. His teammates were aware and accepted that the TV was in the right position to witness all of this. We also regularly see Hendriks with a Canadian cap during his press briefings after the games, as we can see here:
Photo taken from Twitter
Liam Hendriks in 2022 with a Canadian cap during a press conference.
Hendriks has Carey Price and Brendan Gallagher jerseys in the locker room. Everyone is aware of his passion, quite special for a ball player. He then indicated that he was very excited by the choice of Slafkovksy and that he had confidence in the strategies of Martin St-Louis, he told the site Canadien.com.
The date of Hendriks’ return is still unknown, but he wants to return to the game as soon as possible.
