What happens when your baseball hero is diagnosed with a life threatening disease?

We all look at our heroes as if they are indestructible. They appear larger than life. What happens, though, when your baseball hero comes down with a life threatening disease?

We mourn athletes twice. We mourn them when they retire, and we mourn them again when they die. Its a fact of life.

Brooks Robinson revealed in May that he was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. Yesterday, on Roch Kubatko's blog on http://www.masnsports.com/ Brooks said that his three-month checkup revealed that the 39 rounds of chemotherapy he underwent eradicated the cancer and that he was virtually clean. He has a six-month checkup coming up, but Brooks is apparently not worried about the outcome. He feels strongly that he is cancer-free.

I wish I had the same confidence for this man that I have never met. Brooks Robinson is 72 years old. He isn't exactly going to be robbing Johnny Bench of any base hits anytime soon. I have to face the fact that one day, my heroes will be gone. Its a tough pill to swallow, but it happens. I hope that I will be allowed to meet Brooks at some point in the near future, if my health, and his, allows.

I don't want to imagine how I will feel when that day arrives, but given my reaction when I found out that he HAD cancer, but was free of it (apparently), it still felt like I was punched in the gut. Hopefully, it will be a long time before I cross that bridge. I guess it scares me. Makes you think of your own mortality as well...

In New York, they named a candy bar after Reggie Jackson. In Baltimore, they name their children after Brooks Robinson...