April 20, 2007
Parker Dalton studied the faces in the crowded room and nearly burst into tears.
About 2,500 patients each day pass through the diagnostics lab at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Dalton was there that morning last September for tests before surgery to remove a melanoma between his shoulder blades.
As he walked out, the Texas A&M second baseman was gripped with guilt.
Some of those waiting were confined to wheelchairs. Others were bald, pale and younger than him. Many, he sensed, would die within months.
Dalton, meanwhile, was headed back to school and baseball practice.
"I felt like, 'Why do I get to leave? Why am I the one who gets to go back out and play?'" he said. "I had never been to a place like that before. I mean, there is so much hope there, but there's also so much other stuff that you just never forget."
Dalton had surgery five days later, and doctors declared him cancer-free in October.
The only visible remnant of his brief bout is a reddish, eye-shaped gouge in the middle of his back. The invisible changes inside him were more profound.
He's living now with a renewed purpose and an enlightened perspective on his religious faith. He's also playing baseball better than anyone ever thought he could.
"Before the cancer, I would constantly fear results. I played with fear and it showed," Dalton said. "After the cancer, I looked at it and said, 'What is fear? I'm just not scared anymore.' There's this peace in my heart, this sense that I don't have to be afraid of anything."
Dalton hit .242 in 2006 and coaches told him he shouldn't expect to start as a senior. Dalton not only proved he belonged in the lineup, he's batting .400, fourth in the Big 12 heading into a weekend series against Oklahoma State.
"I guess he feels like if he can beat cancer, he can beat a curveball," A&M coach Rob Childress said.
Aside from his stats, Dalton's mere presence has helped the Aggies to a 31-8 record and a national ranking.
"You see the scar on his back and you get reminded every day after practice about what he's been through and what he's overcome," said senior catcher Craig Stinson. "Him being out there, it definitely makes everyone want to go a little harder."
Less than a year ago, Dalton was aimless and miserable, struggling with life as much as baseball. The Aggies went 25-30, their first losing record since 2000, and Dalton was facing summer surgery to repair a rotator cuff.
He bottomed out emotionally in late June, just before the procedure.
"I didn't know who I was," he said. "I felt like I'd let an opportunity slip away. I just fell on my knees and prayed. I didn't know what else to do. I put my life in God's hands, because I knew, if my life was in my hands, who knows what it was going to end up looking like."
After the shoulder surgery, he boosted his spirits by uniting the team to help renovate the house of a retired bus driver. The gesture wasn't out of character for Dalton, who organized activities for displaced Tulane athletes who came to College Station in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. Those efforts earned him Big 12 and NCAA sportsmanship awards.
"He's always been a guy who truly thinks about others more than himself," said senior pitcher Jason Meyer, Dalton's best friend on the team.
Last August, after the house was finished, Dalton returned to Houston for a routine trip to a dermatologist. His mother, Nancy, had started ordering the family to go once a year.
The mole on Dalton's back was no bigger than the sharpened tip of a pencil, he said. Dalton forgot about the appointment the second he left the office.
"No one said anything," he said. "It was no big deal."
A few days later, the first day of the fall semester, Dalton's mother called to tell him the mole was a malignant melanoma. It certainly wasn't the answer to his prayers that Dalton was expecting.
"It was funny, I opened my heart to God," he said, "and then I got cancer."
After surgery, Dalton couldn't practice with the team, but Childress let him coach. Childress divided the Aggies into three teams in the fall to vie for a "world series," competing against each other, on the field and off. Grades and community service counted as much as batting statistics. Dalton's team won.
"I'd never coached before, and I loved it," he said. "I saw the game so much better."
He was still expecting to be a little-used reserve his final season _ until a pep talk from his mother around Christmas.
"She just said, 'Enough. Go out and fight for something more and see what happens,'" Dalton said. "My mom's never said anything like that before. And then I thought maybe I was accepting something that I shouldn't."
Dalton started seven of A&M's first 15 games, but once he broke into the lineup, he was there to stay.
Starting with a 1-for-3 game against New Mexico on March 4, Dalton got at least one hit in 14 of the next 15 games and scored runs in all but two. He got at least two hits in 10 of the 15 games.
"I don't know how much that has to do with the cancer, but he has become maybe the most confident player on our team," Meyer said. "You can read it on his face. He feels like he's going to make every play and get a hit every time he comes up to bat."
Dalton said he probably wouldn't be playing this well if he had never been stricken.
"I've learned you're not promised anything," he said. "You could go down tomorrow with a broken hand, or worse. You just have to play and do everything fearlessly. When you're done, can you look at yourself in the mirror and say, 'If that was the last game I'll ever play, was that as good as I could've played?'"
He said he's also learned to accept that there aren't answers to the questions of why he gets to be a cancer survivor while others don't.
"I'm OK with that now. Before, I really wasn't," he said. "But I've learned that God is in control, and I've accepted that everything that's happened and will happen is in his hands."