Padres give Merila the family treatment

By: SHAUN O'NEILL - Staff Writer | Saturday, April 7, 2007 11:23 PM PDT ∞

Mark Merila heading to the bullpen before the Padres' home opener at Petco Park.
BILL WECHTER Staff Photographer
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SAN DIEGO ---- As Padres batting practice concludes at Petco Park, bullpen catcher Mark Merila abandons his post on a front bench in the far corner of the dugout and heads for the sanctuary of the clubhouse.

It's a trip he has made countless times without a thought. His athletic grace automatically would carry him down those first five stairs away from the dugout and up another 11 to the clubhouse.

Now, nothing comes easy. A brain tumor has robbed this athlete of his athleticism.

Because that tumor has interrupted the flow of information from his brain to his body, Merila must focus on each movement, each step.

The right side of his body balks, but Merila is determined. His left hand is now stronger than the right, so he uses it to balance himself on the handrail. His right arm is tucked close to his torso, an involuntary reflex. No matter. Merila is using the lessons of months of physical therapy to get his right leg moving in concert with his thoughts.

Step by step, he moves forward until at last he disappears into the comfort of the clubhouse.

"I'm 35 years old," he says, "but it feels like I'm 70."

In the clubhouse, Merila is surrounded by familiar faces and sounds. Pitcher Jake Peavy calls him to his cubicle, and they huddle in quiet conversation.

These are friends. They know his story.

They know Merila was a two-sport star in high school in Minnesota, good enough to be offered a hockey scholarship by Boston College and good enough to play four seasons of baseball at the University of Minnesota. They know he represented the United States in international competition and played in the Padres' farm system while batting the first occurrence of the tumor.

What they really know is his work as the Padres' bullpen catcher. Since 1996, he has lived the big-league life while keeping the humble nature of that kid from Minnesota.

He has kept his eyes open and his mouth shut. An infielder by nature, he learned every trick that would help him warm up major-league pitchers and help the ballclub in whatever small way possible. He threw batting practice tirelessly, his pitches true and accurate.

Without big-league credentials, Merila has earned acceptance as a big-leaguer.

"He's a good dude," Padres closer Trevor Hoffman says. "He's genuine, trustworthy. He's a simple guy."

Adds bullpen coach Darrel Akerfelds: "As much as it might mean to him to be here, it meant more to us to have him here. Everyone wants to know how he's doing."

Life changed for Merila on April 9, 1994, when he suffered a seizure on a baseball field. A second baseman for Minnesota, he saw a flash of light and collapsed while taking pregame grounders.

The diagnosis came soon afterward: a low-grade tumor. Surgery was a last option because of the potential damage it could do.

Merila finished the season and became the Big Ten player of the year. He earned All-America status for the second time, a first for a Gophers player.

He played for his Gophers coach with Team USA after his junior season ---- spurning a contract offer from the hometown Twins ---- alongside the likes of current Rockies first baseman Todd Helton and former Padres infielder Todd Walker. In a seven-game series against the powerful Cuban team and its pro-quality players, Merila batted .390.

"He showed he could play with the best players in the country and the world," says John Anderson, Minnesota's coach then and now. "... If it hadn't been for the tumor, I think he would have had a chance."

Ah, but that tumor. It didn't stop the Padres from drafting him in the 33rd round in 1994. He lasted two seasons in the low minors ---- playing while undergoing radiation treatment ---- before the Padres offered him the bullpen job.

"It's one of those things where if it just happens to be one year, it'll be a heck of a year," he said then.

It's year No. 12 now, and Merila feels no less blessed. He and his college sweetheart, Wendy, now 33, married, bought a home in Mira Mesa ---- on the fringes of Los Penasquitos Canyon ---- and began a family. They have three children: daughter Brooke, 6; and sons Boston, 4, and Brody, 2.

Merila's tumor, a Grade 3 astrocytoma originating from the left temporal lobe, lay dormant for a decade as he established himself with the Padres and started a family with Wendy. His yearly MRIs came back clean time and time again.

Without warning, however, the tumor reasserted itself. Merila suffered a grand mal seizure while riding the No. 7 train to Shea Stadium during a series in New York in July 2005. Surrounded by coaches and trainers, he got instant attention. Instant results in treatment proved elusive.

"The sad thing is they gave us so much bad information," Wendy Merila says. "It was basically, 'We're going to have to pump you up with chemo. In four or five months, you might be gone.' "

Merila nearly gave in to that timetable. The tumor, cancerous and still growing, caused his worst seizure yet, at the end of spring training in 2006. The team was playing in Las Vegas, but Merila was sent home.

The seizure in Minnesota was strike one. The one in New York strike two. This was strike three, in his personal scorecard.

"When I came home," he says, "my mind-set was to let whatever happens, happen."

If not for baseball, Merila might have given up. But he was still part of the team, even if he was watching games from afar. It was his sense of obligation to the team ----- and, more specifically, to Hoffman ---- that helped Merila regain his fighting spirit.

Merila's first season in the big leagues coincided with Hoffman's emergence as an elite closer. He was there for Hoffman's career year, when he converted 53-of-54 save chances in 1998. Hoffman, in turn, helped Merila feel like a big-leaguer. He talked Merila out of returning to Minnesota after the '98 season and going into coaching.

"He said he couldn't have done it without me, and that he needed me here," Merila says. "That blew me away."

No wonder that Merila had a vested interest in Hoffman's pursuit of the career saves record last year.

Hoffman had only three saves in April. At that rate, he wouldn't get the record by season's end. Merila had made a point to watch every pitch of every game he was unable to attend because of treatments.

But one night, he was feeling poorly and pessimistic about the treatments. So he went to bed midway through a night game. Hoffman got a save.

"I totally blew off that game," Merila says. "I called him the next day and told him, 'I'm sorry I let you down last night.' He (said), 'What are you talking about?' And I said, 'I've been there for every save, but I wasn't last night. It won't happen again.' "

No one would have faulted Merila for going to sleep, but his personal code told him that was not how a teammate acted. When the Padres returned from that road trip, Merila was ready to work at Petco Park.

There were concessions to his failing health in 2006. Ben Risinger, a farmhand hired as Merila's substitute, caught the more difficult pitchers to warm up. Then Merila's right arm started playing tricks. His throws back to the pitcher were no longer true, and they were sailing wildly by season's end.

At one point, left-hander Alan Embree and Hoffman were the only two pitchers throwing to Merila.

"Trevor told me, 'You just throw it, and I'll get it,' " Merila says

Merila was there, catching and throwing on Sept. 24, when Hoffman earned career save No. 479 to break Lee Smith's record. And he was there two weeks later in St. Louis, when Hoffman earned his first postseason save in eight years.

"Hoffy made sure I did it," Merila says of the playoffs. "It was pretty ugly, but he didn't care. Anybody but Hoffy, I don't think I would have done it. I didn't want anybody to worry. This was a huge time, and we needed to win. But he wanted to do it how it's always been."

Will Merila ever catch another pitch thrown by Hoffman? That is not the goal at the moment. The immediate goal is to contain growth of the tumor.

"There's not going to be a miracle reversal," Wendy Merila says. "No more growth is good news."

There has been good news of late. The Merilas are happy with their current medical team at Scripps Clinic and UCLA Medical Center. The latest chemotherapy, combined with an experimental drug, Avastin, has brought better results.

Merila has an advanced MRI scan monthly to check his progress, and the past two have shown no new growth.

"It's like that saying," Merila says, searching for the words. "You know, the animal ... nine."

A cat has nine lives?

"Yeah," he says. "I've only used three, so there's still a lot left."

Merila is still very much in battle. Steroid treatments that help make the chemotherapy more effective also cause fluid retention and swelling. Bruises and small injuries heal slowly. And the tumor has reached the thalamus, an area of the brain that serves as the conduit of information to and from the body. It has left his conversation halting.

Yet the words come easy as he talks about his treatment goals.

"It's one day at a time," Merila says. "You have one good day and then another. Put four or five of those together, and it starts to really be something."

The best days are the ones spent at the ballpark. So eager was Merila to be around baseball that he departed for spring training the day he completed a chemo cycle. He spent 3 1/2 weeks in Peoria, Ariz., sharing observations with the coaching staff and bullpen tips with Risinger.

"He loves baseball as much as anybody I've ever been around," Risinger says. "Everything he's been through, and he was worried about me and taking time to talk to me. Unbelievable."

Merila spent many mornings in bed during his chemo cycle, but he was up at 6:45 and off to the clubhouse while in Peoria.

"It's always been a part of his life, baseball has," Wendy says. "If he wasn't able to be around baseball, that would be like taking one more thing away from him. We're all made up of work and family ---- it's who we are. Baseball is his job, but it's also part of his character. The hardest thing is that his job was a physical job, and that's all changed. It's a great thing that the Padres have found some capacity where he can be there and help out. ...

"Being around and meeting a lot of different cancer patients during all this, the thing I've noticed is the ones who do best are the ones who have some continuity in their daily lives. The Padres have given us that bit of normalcy."

The Padres, at Hoffman's behest, elevated Merila to full-time status in 1999. Merila has no insurance issues. Team owner John Moores and the team doctors used their influence to get Merila treated by top specialists, and Moores provided a car and driver on days Merila needed to be in L.A. for treatment. That allowed him to get back to Petco Park, rested and ready, for night games.

Never have the Padres suggested Merila take disability leave. The clubhouse doors are open for him.

"He has turned into a key staff member of our club," general manager Kevin Towers says. "I never looked at him as just a bullpen catcher. He has great attributes in dealing with the players and getting pitchers ready. He's been a big part of our success."

Last Sunday was a good day, a day of normalcy.

The Merilas went to church in the morning, then Wendy drove Mark to Petco Park. His No. 71 uniform was there waiting for him, but Merila instead kept on his street clothes ---- a red T-shirt, blue sweat pants and sunglasses ---- as he renewed acquaintances with teammates he hadn't seen since March 11, when he left Arizona because a flu bug had weakened him.

Merila never took the field during the Padres' final preseason workout, getting only as close as that front-row seat in the dugout. He looked out toward the bullpen, across the vast expanse of green, behind the center-field fence.

"I hope I can be out there for day games," he says.

Night games, he concedes, make for too long a day. He made an exception for the home opener Friday and helped raise the 2006 National League West championship flag. Even when he is absent, he will be watching. And his teammates will be waiting for his next good day. That means they get to see him at the ballpark.

"To see his determination to be here and what he's going through physically to accomplish that," Hoffman says, "it's pretty awesome for the guys to witness."

-- Contact staff writer Shaun O'Neill at (760) 740-3546 or soneill@nctimes.com. Comment at sports.nctimes.com.

Mark Merila: at a glance

Age: 35

Family: Married to Wendy, 33; daughter Brooke, 6; sons Boston, 4, and Brody, 2

Resides: Mira Mesa

Occupation: Padres bullpen catcher since 1996

Playing career: Two years as a second baseman in Padres' farm system; batted .253 in 58 games at Single-A Spokane in 1994 and .284 in 56 games at rookie-level Idaho Falls in 1995; four-year letterman at the University of Minnesota; two-time All-American; Big Ten player of the year in 1994; batted .390 for U.S. national team in seven-game series against Cuba in 1993.

Brain tumor facts

- The incidence of brain tumors in the United States is about 14 per 100,000 people.

- There are more than 120 types of brain tumors.

- Astrocytomas are a common type of tumor that starts in the brain cells, or sometimes the spinal cord. A mid-grade astrocytoma is called an anaplastic astrocytoma. This typically spreads to surrounding brain tissue. This is the type Padres bullpen catcher Mark Merila is battling.

- The most severe type of astrocytoma is a glioblastoma multiforme, which can spread very quickly and has a median survival rate of only one year. Former Padres pitcher Rob Ramsay, however, had surgery for this type of tumor in January 2002 and is healthy today.

- Of those diagnosed with a primary or malignant tumor, only 31 percent of males and 30 percent of females survive more than five years after diagnosis.

- Treatments include surgery, radiation and chemotherapy ---- often a combination of the three.

- Symptoms include severe headaches, seizures, personality changes, eye weakness, nausea/vomiting, speech disturbances and memory loss.

Sources: braintumor.org and mayoclinic.org

Baseball Battles

Baseball personalities who have been stricken by brain tumors:

Bobby Bonds, outfielder, 1946-2003

Ken Brett, pitcher, 1946-2003

Josh Gibson, catcher, 1911-1947

Dick Howser, manager, 1936-1987

Walter Johnson, pitcher, 1887-1946

Matt Lawson, UCSD outfielder, 1984-

Tug McGraw, pitcher, 1944-2004

Mark Merila, Padres bullpen catcher, 1972-

Bobby Murcer, outfielder, 1946-

Johnny Oates, catcher/manager, 1946-2004

Dan Quisenberry, pitcher, 1953-1998

Rob Ramsay, pitcher, 1973-

John Vuckovich, infielder/coach, 1947-2007