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SportsO k ill SPORTS EDITOR: JON KUIPERIJ Phone 905-845-3824 (ext. 432) Fax 905-337-5571 email sports@oakvillebeaver.com THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2011 23 By Herb Garbutt OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Alex Mann awoke to a bright light hardly a comforting sight, given what hed been through. Then three heads appeared, staring down at him. Mann had just undergone seven hours of surgery in which the upper 18 centi- metres of the humerus bone in his left arm were removed and replaced with a stainless steel rod. He was still groggy, but alert enough to ask the one question he wanted to know the answer to. Will I ever play baseball again? Mann was once well on his way to achiev- ing his goal. On his 17th birthday May 11, 2009 he turned in the kind of game that made him hopeful of one day earning a base- ball scholarship. He went 3-for-3 with a home run and pitched three innings to earn the save for the T.A. Blakelock Tigers. But a few days afterward, Mann began to feel pain in his left arm. He had felt it before, first in December and again in April. He assumed that it was from pushing a little too hard in his workouts at the gym. He was staying at a friends house for the night but the next morning his parents got a call. The pain was so unbearable that he couldnt sleep. He went for tests and was given two pos- sibilities: osteomyelitis, an infection of the bone marrow, or Ewings Sarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer in which the can- cer cells are found in the bone. I just had a bad feeling, Mann says. Id never felt pain like that. The diagnosis came back. It was cancer. Even though he knew it was a possibility, it still caught Mann by surprise. He was an active, healthy teenager. How could he have cancer? Within three weeks, Mann began chemo- therapy treatments. Halfway through his treatment, he was scheduled for surgery. Baseball scholarship was Mann's goal Mann doesnt fully remember the answer to his question, but he got the point it was very unlikely he would play baseball again. fHe would have a very limited range o motion with his left arm. If he could lift it to touch the top of his head, it would be consid- ered a success. For Mann, the news was devastating. He had played basketball and volleyball earn- ing team MVP honours in the latter at Blakelock and also played hockey. But it was baseball that he really loved and in which he excelled. He joined Oakville Little League when he was four and later played with the Oakville As. When Mann started high school, he joined the Hamilton Thunderbirds of the Premier Baseball League of Ontario (PBLO). In addi- tion to pitching, he played third base and shortstop. He eventually gave up his other sporting pursuits to concentrate on baseball and earning a scholarship. That was the goal, and not achieving something he has set his sights on does not go over well with Mann. He doesnt take no for an answer, says his mom, Adele. Mann makes no apologies for being com- petitive. w Alex Mann refused to let cancer in arm keep him from the sport he loved See Cancer, page 24 BACK IN ACTION: Alex Mann delivers a pitch for the T.A. Blakelock Tigers during a Halton high school baseball game earlier this year. The local teen was playing in his first high school season since u de go g bo e su ge y o s e t an r in n r r n hi l f rm. MICHELLE SIU / SPECIAL TO THE OAKVILLE BEAVER