In Lingerman Family, Fear Strikes Out

 (Calvert Hall Athletic Department)

By: Keith Mills

Every time Patty and Nemo Lingerman look out on the baseball field at Calvert Hall and see their son Kevin make a play at third base, strike out a batter or drive in a big run, they can't resist the urge to glance up at the sky and count their blessings.

"He's our hero," Patty said. "He's a true miracle."

Kevin is an 18-year-old senior and one of the best high school players in the country. On Friday morning he'll board a plane for Fullerton, Calif., where Lou Eckerl's Cardinals, Baseball America's No. 2 high school team in the country, will play in next week's prestigious Anderson Bat National Classic.

Kevin Lingerman's story, though, is far more powerful, far more inspiring and far more important than his team's national ranking, his own gaudy statistics or even his humble and infectious personality.

"This is a movie or a book," Nemo said. "I think Kevin might be the best-kept secret in the country."

His dad may be right.

***

"Memorial Day weekend, 1996," Patty said. "Kevin had just turned 6 in March. He was a tiny little guy, and we noticed he was losing his appetite, very lethargic. We took him to the doctors, and they said nothing was wrong. He would get colds and couldn't shake them, and he was getting real sick. Finally, we took him to the doctors and said, 'Look, something's wrong here.'

"Finally, we got authorization to go to [Johns] Hopkins, and they took a chest X-ray. There was a tumor so big it covered a lot of his chest wall."

The diagnosis was Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare form of cancer which attacks the bone and soft tissue of the body.

"Hopkins told us they couldn't take our insurance so we went to Maryland," Patty said. "At that time they told us he was one of only three kids in the world at that age who had Ewing’s. It was very rare for kids who weren't yet teenagers. They didn't give us a lot of hope."

Kevin battled cancer, not once but twice. The experience is now a vivid memory for Patty and Nemo Lingerman, Kevin and daughter Erin, and one the entire family wants to share with any family of young children that is going through what they did.

"We believe we have a story that can help a lot of people," Nemo said.

ROUND 1

By early June 1996, Kevin was admitted to University of Maryland Hospital, where doctors hoped to shrink a tumor "so big," according to Patty , "they thought Nemo had hit him."

Nemo, of course, had not. What he and Patty did, though, was put all their energy, faith and resources into a treatment program that everyone knew might not work. What Kevin did was display the amazing resiliency and toughness that defines him today.

"On June 2 or 3 they kept him overnight," Patty said. "They did CT scans and tests. You name it, they did it. On June 10, they did a biopsy and immediately started chemotherapy the next day. They put in a central line to deliver the medication, and it was really difficult for Kevin. But when he got out, we had a party at our house in his honor. Kevin was really oblivious to it all. He was young.

"So he's on his bike flying around and goes down this hill like a wild man, and I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, he's going to kill himself.' If it was up to me, he would've been in a bubble. We would've kept him protected. But Nemo kept insisting to let him go, let him be a little boy.

"He was taking chemo for 21-day cycles, five or three days a week. Nemo and I would go to the hospital every day, and Nemo would take the kids in our wing up to the gym at University. They'd play basketball and kickball. It was amazing to see the courage of these kids. It was incredible."

What was more incredible, however, was that the treatment worked, and the tumor shrank, despite Patty and Nemo's decision not to use radiation as a treatment.

"We decided not to do that because the tumor was close to his spine, and we were afraid there would be some real traumatic complications," Patty said. "They weren't real happy with us, but we decided that it was in God's hands, and he was going to have to beat it without radiation.

"After six months of chemo, they performed surgery and removed his third rib and part of his fourth. The chemo treatments lasted almost the entire year. He didn't pick up a baseball or baseball bat until he was 8 years old."

ROUND 2

"Doctors never use the word 'remission'," Patty said. "They call it 'protocol'. The protocol for Kevin called for us to take him back to the doctors every three months the first year, then six months the second, then once the third, fourth and fifth. They told us once we got through five years it probably wouldn't come back."

In the fall of 2001, four years and 10 months after the tumor had disappeared, it was back.

"He was 11 and playing in a 13-14 baseball league,” Patty said. “It was in the fall, and he was stealing home, and the catcher hit him so hard it literally threw him out of the batter's box area. The next couple of days Kevin knew something was wrong. He was in a lot of pain. We called Maryland. We took him in, and they found the tumor in the same area, behind the fourth, fifth and sixth ribs. Had that boy not hit Kevin we would've probably never had known the cancer came back, and it may have been too late. We love that boy who hit him."

But again, they didn't love the prognosis or the effects of the treatment.

"It was awful," Patty said. "They went right in and had surgery. They took the tumor out and also took out his fourth, fifth and sixth ribs. If they hadn't taken them out, they said the chemo wouldn't work, and they wouldn't be able to treat it."

Because of the severity of the situation, Kevin's case was transferred to the National Institute of Health in Washington, D.C.

"Again, they wanted to give him radiation," Patty said. "They said once you take chemo and it does come back, you can't take chemo again. I was against all of this. I didn't want Kevin to be a guinea pig. We were trying to be honest. He was 11. I mean, what were we doing to our child?"

Eventually, the Lingermans agreed to one more round of chemotherapy at the University of Maryland, a potent level of treatment that made Kevin incredibly sick.

"The kid is a hero," Patty said. "He never, ever complained."

Again, incredibly, the treatment worked, and as 2001 turned into '02, Kevin began to get better.

"The protocol this time said we had to get checked out every three months for the first three years, every six months for the fourth year. They told us if it doesn't occur again from ages 15 through 17, it may not."

Kevin turned 18 March 12.

"When I was 6, it didn't kick in what was happening,” Kevin said. “The second time when I was 11 and 12, I knew how bad it was. It took a toll on me, but we got through it."

THE FAMILY

Nemo Lingerman grew up in the heart of Highlandtown.

"I lived on the 400 block of Bellnorde Avenue, and Patty lived on the 500 block,” he said. “We started dating when we were kids and have been together for 33 years."

Patty went to Our Lady of Mount Carmel High School in Essex. Nemo went to Patterson, where he graduated in 1975 and was the Clippers’ best pitcher when Roger Wrenn took over the baseball program.

"Two years ago, I took Kevin to watch Roger's football team at Patterson play Perry Hall, and Kevin didn't believe I played for him,” Nemo said. “We walked by, and I said, 'Hey Coach, I want you to meet my son Kevin.' He said, 'Kevin, your dad was the best pitcher I ever had.'"

Lingerman pitched a no-hitter against Archbishop Curley the first game he threw in the spring of 1975, and by the summer of 1976 he was a member of the Minnesota Twins organization. After two outstanding games with the Hearst All-Star team in July 1976 the Dodgers, White Sox and Twins offered him professional contracts.

He signed with the Twins, returning three years later to East Baltimore, where he and Patty got married and began raising their family. Kevin was born in 1990. Three years later, Erin was born.

"I thank the Lord every day," Nemo said. "Just to watch Kevin is inspiring. With all he's been through, he's just not scared of anything. He has no fear."

He certainly has no fear on the baseball field. Last Saturday, in Calvert Hall's 4-3 win over DeMatha, Kevin drove in the game-tying run with a screaming base hit to right field with two outs and two strikes in the seventh inning. The hit scored Joe Robak and set up the Cards' 39th win in a row.

But Kevin's 2008 season began with another surgery, this time in the fall of 2007 for a herniated disc in his back.

"Kevin's pain threshold is incredibly high," Patty said. "It's unbelievable. When he says he's hurting, he's really hurting. Last fall he told me his back was really sore, and the first thing that pops into your mind is, ‘The tumor is back.’"

The back pain began last fall when Kevin was playing for the Oriolelanders scout team.

"He didn't want to say anything, because he thought it was a real privilege to be on that team,” Patty said. “He didn't want to complain but he was really hurting."

"That's the kind of kid he is" Nemo said. "He's done things the right way, and he's worked really hard to get where he is."

Finally, he told coach Dean Albany about the injury, and Albany, Patty and Nemo insisted he see his doctor. He had back surgery Oct. 10 to repair a herniated disc. Two weeks ago, Kevin complained of some soreness in his shoulder. This time the diagnosis was a pinched nerve in his arm that has improved with treatment.

Just three weeks ago, Kevin announced he would play baseball and attend school next year at George Mason University in northern Virginia. But right now he is totally focused on his final year of baseball at Calvert Hall. A year ago, the Cardinals finished a perfect 33-0 and won their third consecutive Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference championship. Kevin hit .390 with 47 runs batted in and finished 7-0 with a 1.49 ERA as a pitcher. He is well aware he can inspire other young cancer patients in a different way, with his remarkable message of hope and courage.

"That's what I'd like to do," Kevin said. "I don't know how many kids are really aware that there are other kids who've beaten this. I'm willing to do whatever I can to help."

"People really don't understand what's involved," said Patty. "There's a lot of anger. Other parents see your kid, and they start talking. You don't know if he's going to make it. Nemo's full of anger, I'm full of anger. It's very stressful, but you have to keep pushing. You can't give up."

"Everybody needs to know his story," said Nemo. "Not just the kids but the parents as well. They need to know they can make it. They can beat it."

"It's been hard for us," said Patty. "From a financial aspect we've never really recovered. But when Kevin got that hit against DeMatha on Saturday and he had that smile on his face at first base, we knew he was back. All that he has been through, that smile made it all worth it."

Issue 3.12: March 20, 2008