Jake Fraley isn’t off to the kind of start he expected this month.
But the Cincinnati Reds outfielder already is having his best season in two years – even before his breakthrough game against the Seattle Mariners Thursday.
“When you go through something like that, it really puts into much more perspective just how little this job and all the (worldly) things that encompass life, and how minuscule they all are,” Fraley said.
A glance at Fraley during spring training showed what he meant, with his wife and small kids enjoying the Arizona sunshine while he worked – 6-year-old daughter Avery, in particular, bouncing around camp near the ballfields.
“She’s got all her hair back, all her energy back; she’s back to our normal baby girl,” Fraley said.
It’s been a long road for the family, but after more than a year of treatments for acute lymphocytic leukemia, Avery remains in remission.
And if the Reds’ baseball plans this season play out into a postseason run, she might be finishing scheduled treatments right about the time her dad’s done playing this year.
“It’s tremendous. It’s a blessing,” Fraley said.
In one big way, he said, the recent offseason was no different than the one before, the one the family began the road from terrifying diagnosis to faith and focus on healing.
“I’m still resting in the Lord. I’m surrendering to Him,” Fraley said.
But Avery’s restored health over the past several months has admittedly breathed new life into Fraley, renewed peace and perspective.
And he’s felt the difference professionally, too, this year.
“Last year I was one foot in, and one foot out. It was just the nature of what we were going through,” said Fraley, who at one point last year took a six-day personal leave for Avery’s care. “When you go through something like that it definitely changes something inside you.
“But going into this season,” he said, “obviously it’s different in the aspect of I’m not having to wake up at 6 o’clock in the morning and then going to watch my daughter get chemo and then shooting over to the field for a 6 o’clock game. That obviously has changed. So you feel like you have a little bit more energy.”
Not that anyone from the outside would have suspected that something so profound was going on in his personal life off the field.
“Incredible,” said Collin Cowgill, the Reds first base and outfield coach. “I mean, the toughness that the guy shows day in and day out in general is exemplary. With all the stuff with Avery last year, if you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t know what was going on.”
Through it all, he still managed to hit a career-high .277 in 116 games with 20 stolen bases last year.
“He’s as tough of a human being as I’ve ever met,” Cowgill said. “This year, it’s not a noticeable difference, but I can tell the way he’s talking about his family life and in general just how much at peace he is there. And just a little bit more able to focus on baseball.”
Said Fraley: “It’s just changed me. It’s changed me for the better.”
Fraley and his family leaned hard into their faith during the year that turned their lives upside down, and Fraley calls that the key, for getting through it and for that change, even when it comes to baseball.
“As a man and a disciple of Christ, that’s everything, because we get so sucked up into this game, because it’s so difficult, and it’s so hard to be the best player in the world and to stay atop of those for as long as you can,” he said, “that (it’s) getting to that place of understanding that we’re going to spend more of our life not playing this game than playing, right?
“The betterment of the change for me going through all of that was really just understanding how grateful I am for all the little things. And it’s really kind of taken me to a new place that I’ve never been in baseball before.”
Better at that even? On the field?
“I don’t want to lean on the side of a better player because there’s so much of this game that’s out of our control,” Fraley said. “I think it has made me a better husband. it has made me a better father. It has made me a better teammate. And I’m not 22, 23 years old anymore; I’m getting ready to turn 30 years old, and after this year I’m going to have just short of six years of service time. People look at me as a veteran, which is weird to say.
“It’s changed me in the aspect of just being able to recognize things for what they truly are.”
Whether the transformed outlook and peace of mind helps take Fraley to an All-Star selection, it’s the better place he’s discovered over the past year and a half that he says is what matters.
“When you live a life that’s not centered around Christ it’s a difficult way to live,” he said, “and especially when you’re playing a game that’s so difficult to play, and it’s dictated on the pressure, and everybody’s watching you, and you’ve got to do well, and you’ve got to do this, and you’ve got to do that.
“I think that it just takes you to a space where, like King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, where he says that everything is meaningless,” Fraley said. “Everything has meaning, but it’s where our focus is. And it’s brought me to a deeper focus that Christ is everything, and everything else is like a passing in the wind.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: How Cincinnati Reds Jake Fraley found peace in daughter’s road to health
Jake Fraley isn’t off to the kind of start he expected this month.
But the Cincinnati Reds outfielder already is having his best season in two years – even before his breakthrough game against the Seattle Mariners Thursday.
“When you go through something like that, it really puts into much more perspective just how little this job and all the (worldly) things that encompass life, and how minuscule they all are,” Fraley said.
A glance at Fraley during spring training showed what he meant, with his wife and small kids enjoying the Arizona sunshine while he worked – 6-year-old daughter Avery, in particular, bouncing around camp near the ballfields.
“She’s got all her hair back, all her energy back; she’s back to our normal baby girl,” Fraley said.
It’s been a long road for the family, but after more than a year of treatments for acute lymphocytic leukemia, Avery remains in remission.
And if the Reds’ baseball plans this season play out into a postseason run, she might be finishing scheduled treatments right about the time her dad’s done playing this year.
“It’s tremendous. It’s a blessing,” Fraley said.
In one big way, he said, the recent offseason was no different than the one before, the one the family began the road from terrifying diagnosis to faith and focus on healing.
“I’m still resting in the Lord. I’m surrendering to Him,” Fraley said.
But Avery’s restored health over the past several months has admittedly breathed new life into Fraley, renewed peace and perspective.
And he’s felt the difference professionally, too, this year.
“Last year I was one foot in, and one foot out. It was just the nature of what we were going through,” said Fraley, who at one point last year took a six-day personal leave for Avery’s care. “When you go through something like that it definitely changes something inside you.
“But going into this season,” he said, “obviously it’s different in the aspect of I’m not having to wake up at 6 o’clock in the morning and then going to watch my daughter get chemo and then shooting over to the field for a 6 o’clock game. That obviously has changed. So you feel like you have a little bit more energy.”
Not that anyone from the outside would have suspected that something so profound was going on in his personal life off the field.
“Incredible,” said Collin Cowgill, the Reds first base and outfield coach. “I mean, the toughness that the guy shows day in and day out in general is exemplary. With all the stuff with Avery last year, if you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t know what was going on.”
Through it all, he still managed to hit a career-high .277 in 116 games with 20 stolen bases last year.
“He’s as tough of a human being as I’ve ever met,” Cowgill said. “This year, it’s not a noticeable difference, but I can tell the way he’s talking about his family life and in general just how much at peace he is there. And just a little bit more able to focus on baseball.”
Said Fraley: “It’s just changed me. It’s changed me for the better.”
Fraley and his family leaned hard into their faith during the year that turned their lives upside down, and Fraley calls that the key, for getting through it and for that change, even when it comes to baseball.
“As a man and a disciple of Christ, that’s everything, because we get so sucked up into this game, because it’s so difficult, and it’s so hard to be the best player in the world and to stay atop of those for as long as you can,” he said, “that (it’s) getting to that place of understanding that we’re going to spend more of our life not playing this game than playing, right?
“The betterment of the change for me going through all of that was really just understanding how grateful I am for all the little things. And it’s really kind of taken me to a new place that I’ve never been in baseball before.”
Better at that even? On the field?
“I don’t want to lean on the side of a better player because there’s so much of this game that’s out of our control,” Fraley said. “I think it has made me a better husband. it has made me a better father. It has made me a better teammate. And I’m not 22, 23 years old anymore; I’m getting ready to turn 30 years old, and after this year I’m going to have just short of six years of service time. People look at me as a veteran, which is weird to say.
“It’s changed me in the aspect of just being able to recognize things for what they truly are.”
Whether the transformed outlook and peace of mind helps take Fraley to an All-Star selection, it’s the better place he’s discovered over the past year and a half that he says is what matters.
“When you live a life that’s not centered around Christ it’s a difficult way to live,” he said, “and especially when you’re playing a game that’s so difficult to play, and it’s dictated on the pressure, and everybody’s watching you, and you’ve got to do well, and you’ve got to do this, and you’ve got to do that.
“I think that it just takes you to a space where, like King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, where he says that everything is meaningless,” Fraley said. “Everything has meaning, but it’s where our focus is. And it’s brought me to a deeper focus that Christ is everything, and everything else is like a passing in the wind.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: How Cincinnati Reds Jake Fraley found peace in daughter’s road to health
