Baseball journalism is bad enough when it reports a trade that is never made or a free agent who is not signed by the team the report says will sign him. It is bad when it says, as The New York Times has done on more than one occasion, that Curt Flood’s losing lawsuit led to the creation of free agency.
Those kinds of errors, however, are minor when compared to the type of error reporters and their websites and other publications made three weeks ago in their reports about Darren Daulton’s brain cancer.
“Daulton cancer-free after two-year battle,” MLB.com proclaimed.
The website Section215.com reported “Darren Daulton is ‘Cancer Free.’”
Philadelphia.com announced “Darren Daulton Cleared of Brain Cancer.”
Macho-Row, a Phillies blog, said “Darren Daulton is beating brain cancer and that is awesome.”
Sportingnews.com’s headline was “Darren Daulton visits Phillies spring training as he moves beyond brain cancer.”
The Daulton story carried the same headline in the Wilmington (Del.) News Journal and the website NBCSports HardballTalk: “Darren Daulton says he’s cancer free.”
As I learned after an extensive search of reports on Daulton’s brain cancer, he said no such thing. He didn’t say he was cancer free, and he didn’t say he had beaten cancer. Reporters put the words in his mouth. That linguistic trick doesn’t make it so.
“Someone with glioblastoma is never cancer free,” said an expert on Daulton’s type of brain tumor, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “He may be stable; his scans may be stable. But you’re never cancer free.”
The former Philadelphia Phillies catcher had his tumor removed by Dr. Kevin Judy at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia in July 2013. Twenty months later Philadelphia writers declared Daulton free of cancer because he told them his recent MRI was clean.
This is a subject that has become close to my heart and mind, and I find it difficult to accept the type of reporting that has been done in the Daulton matter. As a 12-year survivor of brain cancer myself, I wish Daulton only the best outcome for him, full recovery and long, productive life. However, I feel the need to question the media’s proclamation of him being cancer free.
My primary concern about the erroneous reporting is that it may offer other cancer victims – glioblastoma victims particularly – false hope. As my expert said, if you have had glioblastoma, you are never cancer free.
An example of how misleading this type of erroneous reporting can be:
In the comments section of one of the articles, a reader so excited for her own prospects wrote in capital letters and with plenty of exclamation points, “CONGRATS DUTCH!!!!!!! I WAS JUST DIAGNOSED BACK IN MAY WITH THE SAME THING AND NOW I HAVE HOPE!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!”
Call this false hope. For sure, all cancer patients should have hope and be positive about their chances for beating cancer, but let the hope and positive attitude be based on reality, not on fiction created out of ignorance.
I have had a dozen years of clean MRI’s, and it’s probably safe for me to believe the cancer will not recur (my superstitious wife would kill me if she read this). But I would never encourage anyone who has had a malignant brain tumor to be overly positive about his or her medical futures based on my experience. My status isn’t going to help anyone else. If it gives someone hope, terrific. I cannot, however, offer a money-back guarantee.
My tumor fortunately wasn’t glioblastoma. Daulton’s was. When he was diagnosed in 2013, he was added to a list that includes seven and possibly nine former major leaguers for whom glioblastoma was fatal.
According to the American Brain Tumor Association, “Glioblastoma mutliforme (GBM) is one of the deadliest types of brain cancer, killing approximately 13,000 people every year – including Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2009.” In addition, 16,000 people are diagnosed with glioblastomas every year.”
“In fact,” ABTA adds, “most patients succumb to the disease within 16 to 18 months of their diagnosis.”
This is the roster of former players who were struck down by glioblastoma and the time of their survival following diagnosis:
- Johnny Oates 38 months
- Bobby Murcer 19 months
- John Vukovich 18 months
- Dick Howser 12 months
- Dan Quisenberry 9 months
- Tug McGraw 9 months
- Gary Carter 8 ½ months
Bobby Bonds and Ken Brett may also belong on the list, but the types of their brain tumors either weren’t determined or were never disclosed.
And more recently, two non-playing members of the Major League Baseball family succumbed to glioblastoma, Michael Weiner and Jeanine Duncan.
Weiner, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, died 15 months after diagnosis. Duncan, who survived 22 months post-surgery, was the wife of Dave, the retired noted pitching coach, and mother of Chris, a former major league outfielder, who was diagnosed with glioblastoma in October 2012, 7 months before his mother died.
Although both mother and son had the same type of brain tumor, the stages were different, and that might have led to the differences in their survival. Dave Duncan told me that his wife’s tumor was grade 4 and his son’s grade 2, the higher number being worse.
“He’s doing really well,” Dave Duncan said of Chris, speaking on the telephone Saturday from Arizona, where he is an adviser to the Diamondbacks’ general manager and a pitching consultant. The team’s chief baseball officer is Tony La Russa, for whom Duncan served as pitching coach for many years.
Chris Duncan, 33 years old, is not receiving radiation or chemotherapy treatments, his father said, nor is he in any experimental trials, such as those at Duke University or the noted M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston. His father said he takes medication for seizures.
“He was doing an MRI every two months, now every three months,” the elder Duncan said. “They’ve been clean for over a year. Things are going good for him. We keep our fingers crossed all the time.”
But neither Duncan says Chris is cancer free or has beaten cancer.
Murcer, the former New York Yankees’ center fielder, made no such claim either in 2008 when a biopsy of his brain showed scar tissue but not a recurrence of the glioblastoma that had been excised 15 months earlier.
“It’s what we hoped for all along,” a relieved Murcer said of the scar tissue.
Murcer, 62, looked good and felt good for a few months around that time and planned to resume his role as a broadcaster of Yankees games. But he never made any claims about his cancer. His condition changed, he deteriorated rapidly and he died four months after having that biopsy.
I am not saying or suggesting that Daulton shouldn’t have been excited and elated about his clean MRI. Nineteen months after his operation, it was the best news he could have received. If that news helped bolster his positive outlook, terrific.
But members of the news media were not so terrific. For them to report that he was cancer free was inaccurate and irresponsible. Even if he said it, they exhibited gross ignorance and utter failure to serve their readers with informed reporting. But he didn’t say it.
The reporting, or its absence, to be more accurate, demonstrated to what depths the business has sunk. Journalism has become a world of tweeting. No need any longer to work on reporting a story.
The catch phrase on New York subways and New York area trains is “see something, say something.” In journalism today, it’s “hear something, tweet something.” The only thing that matters is who had it first. Not who had it right but who had it first.
In the Daulton case, this “tribute” appeared online:
“CSN’s John Clark broke the news this evening through Twitter, announcing that Daulton, 53, has been cleared of brain cancer after an MRI test. Daulton, who played for the Phillies the majority of his career (1985-1997), was diagnosed with two glioma tumors in July of 2013. After surgery the cancer was still residing, but that cancer is now gone.”
Before tweeting that exclusive, did Clark talk to a doctor to find out exactly what it means to have a clean MRI? Was it a short-range matter subject to the next MRI, or could it have ramifications down the road?
Did any reporter ask any doctor what it means to have a clean MRI when you’ve had a glioblastoma? Did any reporters ask any questions? Or did they just make it up? When I initially read the Daulton story, I was prepared to blame him for the false reporting. I take it back.
I called Dr. Judy, who removed the tumor from Daulton’s brain. He wouldn’t or couldn’t say much for legitimate reasons, including privacy laws.
“I can’t tell you a whole lot for HIPAA reasons, and I haven’t been treating him,” Judy said. “He went back to his home in Florida. His MRI was clean. He looks good. I can’t comment on the exact nature of his tumor. But it’s a terrible disease.”
The neurosurgeon said he didn’t know what treatment, if any, Daulton, was having, but he said, “We’re seeing more and more long-term survivors.”
My effort to reach Daulton through the Phillies was unsuccessful, and the head of Daulton’s foundation, Brett Datto, was out of town and couldn’t be 
reached. Based on what Daulton told reporters at the Phillies’ spring camp, it doesn’t appear that he is having any type of treatment. But it also appeared that they didn’t ask him any critical questions.
“After visiting his oncologist for an MRI examination in Florida, Daulton tweeted this on Thursday,” Bob Brookover, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s veteran baseball writer, wrote: “‘I’m incredibly blessed to have a clean scan. Thank u to all of u for the continued support. I’m doing well and feeling great #RightOnFightOn.’”
Upon closer reading, I noticed that Daulton doesn’t say he is cancer free. He had a clean scan, he said, which was accurate and not misleading. It’s what the writers and the headline writers did with it that blew it out of perspective.
“Here’s what that means in the simplest terms: Daulton is beating brain cancer,” Brookover wrote, taking a leap the width of the Grand Canyon.
The many other reports I read were just as exaggerated and misleading. Philadelphia writers should know better. Some of them might even have covered Oates, Vukovich, McGraw and Brett.