Devin Smeltzer's an ace pitcher in New Jersey now. But when he was 9 years old, he was fighting cancer. His experience has helped forge who he is today.
Photo by Joseph Santoliquito
There's not much you can read anymore with all the sweat stain smudges, but the names remain there scrawled underneath the bill of his cap.
It doesn't matter. It only matters to
Devin Smeltzer. He can make them out. They're indelible. Standing in the outfield, or on the mound, his eyes need only to rise up and see who they are, and what they represent and who he's playing for.
The 6-foot-3, 170-pound junior lefthanded pitcher from
Bishop Eustace Prep (Pennsauken, N.J.) will sporadically go back and channel the 9-year-old and what it was like those nights, resting in a hospital bed wondering if he'd ever throw a baseball again. Wondering if he'd live.
The names Smeltzer carries with him on the field, underneath the bill of his cap, are forever locked in his heart. They're the ones that didn't make it. Frankie never reached 9. Little Lea didn't make it to 3. And there's Mr. Love, the father of a friend, remembered, too.
Smeltzer, 17, is a star pitcher on the Crusaders team. He's thrown a no-hitter this year and has a 7-2 record, and an ERA below 1.40. He throws in the upper 80s to low 90s, with 87 strikeouts over 45 innings. In his no-hitter against Seneca, he helped himself by hitting a three-run homer.
When he's not pitching, he's the Crusaders' centerfielder.
Devin Smeltzer, Bishop Eustace Prep
Photo by Joseph Santoliquito
And when he's not playing baseball, or studying for the academically demanding course load at Eustace, or tweeting or texting, or playing video games or the million other things teenagers do, he often remembers the time when he had cancer — at the age of 9 — and beat it.
"It's why there are a lot of people that I play for," said Smeltzer, a leading reason the Crusaders could go deep into the NJSIAA South Jersey Parochial A playoffs. "It's more than just about me. It's about every kid that has cancer. There are a lot of people under my hat who I play for, cancer-related, and not cancer-related. It's all the people I lost and who were close to me. Just people who have touched me in my life.
"My story isn't about me anymore. My story is about giving hope to other people. There was a kid almost the same age as me. He didn't make it. The hardest thing about going through cancer is meeting all these amazing people, and those people passing away and you moving on. I remember Frankie. There was Baby Lea, and it was hard to hear when she passed away. She was under 2. That's the hard part. I beat cancer, but the battle is still there. I'll always have it. You have to help the people that have helped you — and there are a lot of people that have been there for me."
Starting with Tim and Chrissy Smeltzer, Devin's parents. They began noticing something unusual with Devin, when he was 9, in March 2005. He was experiencing abdominal pain and had the urge to constantly go to the bathroom.
During a family trip to Florida, the urges to constantly urinate began to get painful. He took medication for it. Devin saw a urologist. He underwent a battery of tests. Still, no answers.
The urge left for a time. By August 2005, Devin was flying off the field between innings, running to the bathroom as soon as he got off the field, though he was initially afraid to say anything to his parents that it was back.
Finally, after some local hospitals couldn't admit Devin immediately, the Smeltzers got him into St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia.
He never left.
Doctors found a mass the size of a large grapefruit pressing against Devin's bladder and connected to his prostate. The night he was diagnosed, Devin was supposed to start for his summer club team in the championship game of the Magnolia Tournament.
Instead, he received a phone call from his team that they had won. They announced his name with the rest of his teammates. But that night, only air stood where Devin was supposed to be standing.
"More than anything I remember I was really, really angry; the doctor said they were pretty sure I had cancer and the first thing that came to mind was that I was never going to play baseball again," Devin recalled. "At first, I'll admit, I was angry at the world, just so frustrated why this could happen to me. I was 9. You're a kid and you have so many things run through your head.
"After the first month or so, I started getting accustomed to the cancer. I realized I had something very beatable and I had to stop feeling sorry for myself, man up and make the best out it. It made me grow and mature and look at life a lot differently. It made me realize what life was and is. It made my priorities very set in cement. They still are.
"It made me realize that playing baseball is a privilege to play. I saw so many kids go through chemo that weren't able to play or walk again. Once I got over the negatives about it I turned it into as positive a situation as I could, if you could turn being 9 and having cancer into something positive."
He did.
Throughout five-and-a-half weeks of chemotherapy and radiation, Devin continued to play baseball. The Smeltzers wanted Devin to lead as close to a normal life as possible. But there were obstacles. Plenty of them. For one, he was brittle. The treatment had shaved 30 pounds off his 80-pound frame.
He had no taste buds. Everything tasted like copper to him. But he had to regain some weight to continue playing, or go on a feeding tube, which would have prevented him from playing altogether.
"It still brings tears to my eyes," said Chrissy, Devin's mother. "You remember all of the things that he went through, and then you see him today, a young man who's 6-3 and can throw the way he does. It brings you back to when he was restricted from even going to school, because the chemo had weakened his immune system. He lost all of his hair."
Said Devin, "The hardest part was the treatments. Your body, like every cell inside you, is burning up. Some chemos I would have hot flashes. Being able to still play baseball kept me going. It's the leverage my parents had and the reason I used to drink these nasty protein shakes to keep the weight on."
In December 2012, Devin's cancer was in complete remission. He's had a few scares along the way, like when blood was found in his urine in January 2013, but was found to be caused by possible dehydration.
On May 18, Devin pitched Eustace to a 6-1 victory over Eastern, one of the best teams in South Jersey, in the quarterfinals of the South Jersey Diamond Classic. The kid who was once too sickly to go to school, with sunken eyes and pasty skin, tossed a two-hitter, striking out nine and walking two.
Devin, who carries a 3.0 GPA, is receiving attention from South Carolina, Florida Gulf Coast, Florida State and Clemson. He has a great repertoire of pitches that includes a plus-fastball, slider, changeup and knuckleball.
Above everything else, Devin carries a perspective that's beyond his age, reaching beyond the scope of most high school athletes. He's spurred by the feeling that it's more than just him when he walks on the mound.
"Every six months I go over to St. Christopher's to see kids," Devin said. "When I was sick, there was a kid who came to me and talked to me like nothing was wrong. That's what made me feel good. So when I go in there, I make it seem like there is nothing wrong and talk to them like they're a regular kid. I want to pitch in the majors one day. That's the goal. But I have no problem saying I'm the ‘cancer kid.' I have no problem sharing my story and telling it to other kids.
"I don't believe I would be where I am without cancer. It made me determined and made me work harder than anyone. I work ridiculously hard because I never know when my last game will be. The battle will still be there. It will never go away. I'm extremely proud to be a cancer survivor. I think I found out I'm stronger than I thought."
