In a statement to ESPN, Bettis revealed that he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and underwent surgery in late November. He is confident he will be ready for spring training and that the cancer “was isolated and has not spread.”
“I was completely caught off guard by my diagnosis, but have subsequently found that the vast majority of cases occur in men 20 to 40 years of age, and that the survival rate is 99 percent when contained and caught early,” Bettis conveyed in the statement. “This only reinforces my belief that each of us needs to be totally in tune with our own physical health, and that taking action sooner than later when we feel like something is off can sometimes literally be the difference between life and death.