Tucker: Liam Hendriks is baseball’s larger-than-life hero
This column was originally written and submitted on May 30, 2023
I recently wrapped up my time at Northwestern University, and over the course of my time there, I submitted several pieces that I never had time to publish. I wanted to retroactively go through and publish some of my work. I’m proud of these pieces, and I think they are vastly superior to any column I had written before this year.
I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain on posting once a day, but I wanted to go ahead and send out this piece I did on May 30, 2023 with the MLB World Series in place. This column came off the heels of a White Sox-Angels game, with Liam Hendriks making his return to play from Stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
One last aside, I wrote this in the style of the late and great Jim Murray.
Liam Hendriks is baseball’s next superhero.
Superheroes are all about toppling dastardly supervillains in spite of tall odds. But this reality doesn’t have guys in capes who fly around defeating monsters.
Thankfully for us, our superheroes come in the form of athletes who do what was previously believed to be impossible.
We don’t have Superman but we do have Shohei Ohtani, who is capable of hitting it 462 feet out of the park and throwing a 102 mph fastball. The Incredible Hulk might not exist but we were able to watch Barry Bonds crush 762 home runs across 22 years.
Just like the never-ending supply of Marvel movies in the last two decades, there is no shortage of baseball heroes and stars. Last night, the biggest hero was Hendriks.
Hendriks took down one of the biggest villains of them all, Stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He did so in under six months.
Hendriks, of course, isn’t the only professional athlete to have taken on cancer and won. Just down the street, Chicago Cubs slugger Trey Mancini and pitcher Jameson Taillon had their own victorious battles with cancer.
There are few things in the world that could unite the Chicago White Sox and Cubs. Cancer is one of them. Hendriks told us that before the game, Mancini and Taillon reached out to congratulate him.
Hendriks also took the time to thank Angels catcher Matt Thaiss for stepping out of the box to let his return marinate for a while longer, although he didn’t appreciate the leadoff single. After his third standing ovation of the night, it seemed like the entire baseball world, no, the entire world, was behind Hendriks.
That’s the beauty of sports.
Sports are a microcosm of society. As fans, we see successes and failures, as well as the peaks and valleys of human emotion. We see people at their lowest, like when Derrick Rose tore his ACL, and we see people at their highest, like when 21-year-old Tiger Woods won the Masters Tournament and erupted into celebration in 1997.
We saw a bit of both on Monday. Hendriks’ return was special, there was no doubt about it, but Hendriks was the first to tell us his performance wasn’t where he wanted it to be. Hendriks allowed two runs in the eighth, which ended up being the difference in a 6-4 loss.
In spite of the joyful spirit of the night, Hendriks said he still has a long way to go before being at the level he wants to be at. He looked downtrodden at the end of the inning despite the vibes of the night.
“I’ll never be OK with mediocrity,” Hendriks said. “I’ll never be OK with not being at the back end of the bullpen. But in saying that, I need to earn it. I don’t want handouts. I need to work. I need to earn it. The guys have been throwing well out there. But at the end of the day, that’s mine. But as I said, I need to earn it.”
Regardless, the mere fact that Hendriks returned and clocked 96.6 mph on a fastball is otherworldly. His first pitch was a strike that caused an uproar. His wife, Kristi Hendriks, was caught on camera yelling at the umpire, relentlessly cheering on her husband.
He might not have had the game he wanted but there is zero doubt he will return to his All-Star form. The glimpses into greatness were there. 16 of his 27 pitches were for strikes, six of them being swinging strikes.
Hendriks is a reminder of what people can accomplish. As otherworldly as he may seem, he’s an inspiration to us all. Like Superman racing across the big screen, Hendriks was a beacon of hope.
On a field featuring two of baseball’s biggest stars in Ohtani and Mike Trout, it was Hendriks who shined the brightest on Memorial Day.