Anchorage Daily News

The topic of conversation was Dennis Mattingly's terminal disease and the life-extending transplant he may or may not be able to afford, but you never would have guessed the subject was so grim.

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Mattingly -- the founder and general manager of the Anchorage Bucs baseball team -- could have been talking about the stubborn patch of yellow grass in the Mulcahy Stadium outfield, or the merits of barbecue sunflowers seeds, or the star infielder whose work habits didn't match his hype.

This was no pity party. Just straight, plain talk, delivered in the rough-around-the-edges style favored by blue-collar guys like Mattingly, who call ballparks and bowling alleys their homes away from home.

"So far I've been very fortunate," he said. "I broke a rib; that ain't no big deal. I broke my jaw; that ain't no big deal."

But the reason behind those broken bones is a very big deal: multiple myeloma, an insidious cancer that makes bones brittle and renders the body's immune system all but useless.

The expected life span for multiple myeloma patients is five years. Mattingly was diagnosed in 2000, after he broke a rib when sneezing and re-broke it three months later while bowling.

In 2005, a stem-cell transplant extended his expiration date by three years. Now the cancer's back, and without another transplant, Mattingly might not see another baseball season.

"I don't really like to broadcast it," said Mattingly, who for years has politely rejected timid requests to tell his story. "I'm not looking for sympathy. I'm looking for a cure, and trying to find a way to pay for it all."

A retired driver for the Teamsters, Mattingly depends on wife Sandy's Blue Cross/Blue Shield health insurance. The policy has a $250,000 cap for transplants, and about $95,000 remains from the 2005 procedure.

Three years later, the price of a transplant is higher. Before Mattingly can even check into a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center facility in Seattle, the Mattinglys must deposit $127,000 to cover the surgery. That's on top of the $95,000 insurance money.

Sandy, who works at a law firm, is ready to say goodbye to her retirement plans, cash in her mutual funds and buy her husband three more years. Only that nest egg isn't worth what it was before the economy took a nosedive. And besides, Dennis doesn't like the idea of leaving his wife destitute, just so he can live a little longer.

So he has agreed to let his family and friends put on some fundraisers in the hope they can raise the necessary $127,000.

"That's a lot of money to spend to get three more years," Mattingly said. "We blew $200,000 doing it the first time and now we've gotta turn around and blow another $200,000 for another three years?

"I told Sandy, you may live to be a hundred. We can't spend everything we've got trying to save me.

"Of course, she won't listen to that."

The clock is ticking, not just on Mattingly's life, but on the transplant. The hospital needs the deposit by Dec. 3. That's less than four weeks from now, and fund-raising efforts only started a week ago and are very much in the early stages.

Though there is no guarantee a transplant would be successful, the first one worked -- for three years, just as advertised.

The cancer is back. It's eating away at Mattingly's jaw, and doctors are constantly vigilant to see where it might show up next. They bombarded Mattingly's jaw with 15 radiation treatments, and now Mattingly is getting twice-weekly chemotherapy treatments.

Mattingly, 59, says he feels fine, but is often fatigued.

"I used to bowl 40, 60 games a week," he said. "Now I bowl three games and I'm bushed. If I bowl four, put a fork in me. I'm done."

Yet he still shows up to work at the Anchorage Bucs office almost every weekday.

Mattingly started the team in 1980, when it was called the Cook Inlet Bucs. He's the only general manager in team history.

Sometimes it seems like he's the entire franchise. He mows the outfield lawn, drives the team bus to games in Fairbanks, figures out flight schedules for the players who arrive each summer from all over the country to play in the Alaska Baseball League. Before the cancer returned, he pitched batting practice. Before the Bucs had a clubhouse, he did the team laundry.

"He's down there at 4 in the morning watering the lawn. It's amazing what the man has done," Bucs board president AnnaBell Stevens said. "I really don't know if the club could exist without him."

With any luck at all, a transplant would mean we won't find out anytime soon.

Which brings us back to all that money Mattingly needs to get another shot at another three years.

Two events -- a spaghetti feed and a bowling benefit -- are scheduled for the weekend of Nov. 22-23, but the prospects of those events raising $127,000 seem daunting.

Maybe some former Bucs who went on to draw a Major League paycheck -- Jeff Kent, Geoff Jenkins, Wally Joyner, Jeff Francis and many others -- will get wind of Mattingly's plight and help out their old GM. Maybe Nolan Ryan -- who sent two sons to play for the Bucs -- can work something out through his foundation.

In lieu of that kind of miracle, though, maybe help will come from baseball fans -- from anyone who has watched their kid scramble under the Mulcahy bleachers for a foul ball, or taken in a Fourth of July fireworks display after a Bucs doubleheader, or enjoyed a cold beer and a crisply turned double play on a long June night.

If everyone who's ever gone to a Bucs game pitched in the price of a general admission ticket, we could put down a deposit on Dennis Mattingly's life.

"I want to live. I want to be around," Mattingly said. "But at some point you have to say whoa. I don't want to put my wife in the poorhouse in the process. Dad-gummit, I'm trying to be a realist here."

How to help the Mattinglys

A spaghetti feed to benefit Anchorage Bucs general manager Dennis Mattingly is planned for Saturday, Nov. 22, at Lake Otis Elementary School. A bowling benefit is the next day at Center Bowl. For more details, call the Bucs office at 561-2827.

Donations can be made at Alaska USA Federal Credit Union, account number 1425535 (MA).

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