PHILADELPHIA – Nick Castellanos didn’t share his story publicly until months later. He didn’t even share it with teammates in the beginning as his play suffered and the critics in Detroit started to pile on.
The diagnosis. The fear. The exhausting shuttle to Miami from all parts of the baseball map on off days.
When Cubs manager Joe Maddon welcomes his new right fielder as another “grown-up in the room,” that worst, and best, season of Castellanos’ baseball career, in 2017, is where it began.
“Death became very real for me,” Castellanos said.
This month marks the two-year anniversary of Castellanos learning his father’s brain cancer was in remission after successful surgery – which followed months of anxious conversations with specialists, sobering prognosis statistics and brief visits with his father as he helped lead the process.