Liam Hendriks: From cancer diagnosis to Chicago White Sox return

Liam Hendriks did not want to rule out the first two months of the season.

The Chicago White Sox closer, undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, shared those sentiments with general manager Rick Hahn in the team parking lot on the first day of spring training in Glendale, Ariz.

“I also prefaced it with the fact, ‘Look, I understand it’s a business. I’m not asking for any special treatment or anything like that,’ ” Hendriks said Wednesday of attempting to make a case for avoiding the 60-day injured list. “ ‘But if there’s a chance I don’t have to go on, I would really appreciate not going on purely for my mindset because then I have something to beat.’ ”

Hahn talked to someone who was part of the rehabilitation.

“And they were like, ‘He’s committed,’ ” Hahn said Monday. “‘It is every bit possible that he’s going to be back within those 60 days.’”

Day 60 was May 29, according to Hendriks. And sure enough, he was back on the mound for the first time in 2023 that evening, pitching the eighth inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Guaranteed Rate Field.

Hendriks spent a portion of his postgame news conference evaluating the results — two runs in one inning — but there’s no denying the inspirational night was much bigger than any stat.

“What he’s done has motivated everybody,” Sox starter Michael Kopech said.

It was just in early January that Hendriks disclosed in an Instagram post he was beginning treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“Initially we thought it was relegated to just his neck and under his chin, so we thought maybe stage 2 at the worst,” Kristi Hendriks, his wife, said Monday. “When they said stage 4 and we looked at the PET scan and it was throughout his body, I was just in shell shock. When you hear stage 4, I think it’s one of the scariest things you’ll ever go through.

“And me, I’m a control freak. I’m sitting there and I just want to save him and help him, but I understand that’s not my place. I just knew we are at Mayo, we are in the best place we can be. We have to let go and trust. The science is going to really be there for him.”

Hendriks said one of his first thoughts was “what does my 2023 look like, season-wise. That’s where my head went. Beat whatever prognosis they gave me.”

“It is stage 4, but luckily our doctor was incredible,” he said. “She not only in the same breath as telling us it was stage 4, she also said I’m not concerned or I’m not worried. That was one thing, there was no real time to really think about it. There was no real time to think about it before she said I’m not worried. And that was hugely comforting.

“When she said I’m not worried, that definitely was a relief more than anything. Same breath as hearing stage 4, you panic and then she says she’s not worried, it kind of relaxes you a little bit more.”

Messages of support came from everywhere. Hendriks said a Jan. 30 text from Cubs pitcher Jameson Taillon, once diagnosed with testicular cancer, stood out.

“His was: ‘It’s your journey. Nobody can tell you what to feel or what to do baseball-wise Do whatever you feel is right,’ ” Hendriks said on May 3, adding he threw a bullpen session in the days after the text.

Added Taillon last week: “It’s cool knowing you have a competitor like that. I feel like probably — I don’t want to speak for him — but going through cancer treatments, no one is comfortable with that. But I feel like competing on a big-league mound is somewhere he’s comfortable and he feels like himself.”

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Kristi said “baseball really was Liam’s saving grace.”

“He would essentially have chemo on Monday and immunotherapy and then on Tuesday, he would chemo only,” Kristi said. “On Wednesday and Thursday, he would sleep the majority of the day and then on Friday he would get up and go to the field. I think it was his motivating factor to get up again, to feel really good, to feel like he’s doing something normal.

“When you are having all this poison pumped into your body, the last thing you feel is normal. It was great for him, too, to have the camaraderie with his teammates. You (reporters) know Liam, he’s a goofy, random man. And he’s weird. He felt like he was part of his people again. I think that if he didn’t have baseball, his recovery would have been very different.”

On April 20, Hendriks announced he was cancer-free. A minor-league rehab assignment with Triple-A Charlotte followed, which included players stepping out of both dugouts to clap for Hendriks before his first outing in Gwinnett, Ga.

The applauds were prevalent from the crowd and even the opposing dugout Monday at Guaranteed Rate Field before Hendriks threw his first pitch, a strike to Matt Thaiss.

“It was emotional to watch him come out, with all the work that he’s put in and how he did it,” manager Pedro Grifol said Tuesday. “It was emotional to see his family and the way they reacted. It was just a good day. It needed to happen. It needed to happen for the game, it needed to happen for him and his family.”

Hendriks pitched a perfect seventh inning in his second game back Saturday against the Detroit Tigers, striking out Zack Short to retire the side for the first punchout of his return.

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All along, the Hendrikses also wanted to lend a hand to others. The Sox partnered with the Lymphoma Research Foundation for the “Close Out Cancer” T-shirt campaign. Funds raised provided financial assistance to lymphoma patients.

“I was really touched to learn that (the Hendrikses’) first thought was about other patients,” said Meghan Gutierrez, the CEO of the Lymphoma Research Foundation, in a phone interview with the Tribune during spring training. “They set out to think about partnerships and how they can impact the greater lymphoma community and perhaps help others who might not be as fortunate as they to have some of the resources and connections to cancer experts as they face their own lymphoma diagnosis.”

A ceremony before Monday’s game recognized the more than $100,000 raised.

Throughout, Gutierrez said Hendriks provided hope.

“Patients’ lives change forever when they hear those words that you have cancer,” Gutierrez said. “And it can be a very isolating experience. So to see someone like Liam now who I think is very brave to share the journey and the diagnosis, to be out there showing that you cannot only survive but thrive in the face of a lymphoma diagnosis, it means the world to the patients we work with.”

Cubs infielder Trey Mancini, who came back from Stage 3 colon cancer, has texted Hendriks a few times over the past months.

“The fact that somebody can be back pitching in Major League Baseball five months after diagnosis, it’s superhero-level stuff in my opinion,” Mancini told the Tribune on Friday. “It took me like a full year to come back, so for him to come back like that is incredible and just shows who he is.

“I texted Liam the other day, ‘No matter what happens, just make sure you enjoy being back,’ because I feel like my first game back I just wanted to get out there and hit a home run or something like that. Just enjoy the fact that we’re able to still be playing because your life flashes before your eyes when this happens. It’s crazy.”

Reflecting a couple of days after Monday’s outing, Hendriks said he was “more emotional than I’ve been in a long time.”

He received a book of supportive tweets signed by people in the Sox organization.

“It’s very humbling knowing how many people are thinking about it,” Hendriks said.

A conversation with someone while signing after Tuesday’s game stuck with the reliever.

“He was like, ‘I’ve beaten this thing twice and you don’t understand how many people you’re affecting by going through what you’re going through,’” Hendriks said. “That’s something, I forget that while going out there and trying to do what I’m doing out there, but it’s also realizing that I have a platform that I can hopefully potentially make a difference in somebody’s life.

“That’s the one thing, whether it be a mindset thing, whether it be knowing that someone else is out there, whether it be knowing you’re not alone, that’s one I want to make sure we really focus and harp on and obviously still raising awareness and funding and everything like that for looking for a cure.

“My goal is to now is make sure that everyone understands that they’re not alone.”

Chicago Tribune reporter Meghan Montemurro contributed.