How Seeking A Kidney Applies To Sports World

 I need a kidney transplant https://nkr.org/HJT525 and I’m trying to find the right words to express my feelings — and my dilemma — in the best way I know possible.

In sports terms.

As a longtime sportswriter I have concluded that my kidney health crisis is akin to being a mid-major coach in the NCAA football and/or basketball transfer portals trying to recruit the best prospect for me. There is a pool of candidates swimming left and right into the portal out there who can make my life so much better.  Yet, I know there are a lot of other coaches higher up in the food chain who need a prospect — or kidney — more than I do to survive. 

So I wait for the best fit. And I wait. Wait some more. Like Aaron Rodgers on NFL Draft Day in the Green Room. I wait for someone — a family member, a friend, a friend of a friend, a complete stranger, a Swiftie perhaps? — who is willing to make a HUGE sacrifice and donate to me one of their kidneys because both of my kidneys are failing me worse than the Boston Celtics salary cap. I need a prospect who feels comfortable with what I am trying to do to succeed. In other words, someone, a difference maker, to get with my program.

I know the odds are stacked against me. I read somewhere that my odds of receiving a kidney from a potential donor matching with a non-biological relative or friend start at 100-to-1, depending on the patient’s blood type and other immunological markers that are more difficult to figure out than ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating (QBR). Fortunately I’m a Boston Red Sox fan and, ironically, 100-to-1 were the exact odds the Red Sox faced winning the American League pennant in 1967. So getting a kidney from a living donor would be my Impossible Dream.

Coincidentally, my goal is to live at least 15 more years until the age of 86. That way I could honestly say I know how Red Sox fans felt waiting for our Olde Towne team to win a World Series in 2004 since the Curse of the Bambino was cast in 1918. It must have felt like a lifetime. My lifetime.

There are other ways to donate a kidney if not direct from donor to recipient or if the donor and recipient are not compatible. Like Red Sox and Yankees fans. There is the Paired Exchange program (http://bit.ly/3VqtmcQ) which is like the proverbial trade that helps both teams and there is a voucher (http://bit.ly/4p35fyP) that is sort of like a rain check in baseball when a game is rained out and you get to choose another game — or kidney donation — that best fits into your schedule. 

The National Kidney Registry has created more innovative ways to connect a donor with a recipient than an NBA team trying to connect Kevin Durant to another championship.

Thanks to all the support I have received via social media posts, emails, and texts I know I’m not alone in this race against time. However, I feel alone. This is my deeply personal battle and, though I didn’t ask for it, it’s my birthright. I inherited an incurable genetic disease and it sucks for me. I have more cysts on my kidneys now than there are injury accident attorneys and lawyers on my TV. 

My brother waited eight years for a deceased donor. He ran out of luck and time. 

I saw my brother take his last dialysis treatment in his hospital room in Lawrenceville outside Atlanta and vowed I would never, ever play that game. Dialysis is like a no-trade clause in my contract with life. If I become an aging veteran craving one last, desperate chance at winning a championship, I might consider waiving it. Otherwise I have chosen to be proactive and pursue a living donor, which is a different game and requires me to swallow my pride and ask for help.

That’s not easy. That’s not my style. I have to be selfish to an extent because, well, my life is at stake.

There is hope of finding a living donor and a process behind it. Initially I was assigned a living donor search coach through the National Kidney Foundation. She is my Bill Belichick. I also have connected with my offensive coordinator, who is the transplant coordinator at UCSF, about an hour’s drive from my home. He’s calling the plays and will tell me when it is my time to schedule a kidney transplant evaluation appointment once a prospective living donor comes onto the field of play.

Though I am committed to the UCSF team, I can opt out of my deal and, at my age, get a kidney transplant evaluation at one of 100 transplant centers across the country including Mayo in Phoenix. This is called multi-listing, which is sort of like the NFL Combine in Indianapolis before the draft when everyone has a chance to interview and test you and do workups.

What has been a blessing in this process is the network of people I have communicated with through family and friends who have either received a kidney or are awaiting one. Their advice and perspective have been immeasurable. It’s like getting a scouting report before the World Series. Like knowing Dennis Eckersley throws a backdoor slider on a 3-2 count to lefthanded hitters. I’m trying to hit one out of the park.

That has lowered my anxiety level, but also pushed me to step up to the plate and swing for the fences. The problem is the fences — a potential living kidney donor — seem as far away as the Colorado Rockies in the standings.

The first step — the biggest one — is to have someone volunteer to be a donor. That begins with consenting to a blood test that is as thorough as testing an Olympian. Simply go to https://nkr.org/HJT525 and click on the “See If You Are Qualified To Donate” button on the upper righthand corner of my National Kidney Registry microsite website.

In the meantime, I will run in place. It is UCSF policy that I wait for prospective living donor to emerge before I am notified and asked to do a kidney transplant evaluation. With Type O+ blood type, it is normally a 8-9 year wait for a deceased kidney donor. But, with a living donor, it could be three weeks to six months, about the time Jerry Jones took to figure out what to do with Micah Parsons.

If I’m lucky. My eGFR number — which  measures my kidney function that estimates how well my kidneys filter waste products from the blood — is dropping faster than the San Francisco Giants’ wild card chances.

My only hope right now is having a living donor, which significantly produces better medical outcomes and a longer life, almost double that of recipients receiving a kidney from a deceased donor. Hence, I’m not holding up hope that Babe Ruth’s kidney will become available.

Prospective living donors for me can email living.donor@ucsf.edu for more information.

This whole kidney-seeking ordeal has me on a roller coaster of emotions.  I should be working on my next book, but it’s hard to concentrate. Hard to be motivated and move onto something that isn’t so life and death.

I’m not in physical pain. Not yet. My kidneys are starting to ache, like a tooth ache. I feel the ache most when I wake up in the morning in bed, a constant reminder these damn cysts have been building up for years and they are barking now.

Mentally, I’m getting worn down. It’s like the so-called dog days of August in baseball. You keep pushing to make the playoffs, but there are a bunch of teams ahead of you in the wild card standings. The feeling of fatigue has become more concerning, but not the kind of fatigue one might get from reading all my recent social media posts about my book www.thelastoneoutoftown.com. This fatigue is real and physical and it includes the weight of soliciting a kidney in a very public way, which is much more significant than promoting a book or following Taylor and Travis.

I still find the motivation to exercise. The FitBit on my left wrist is my constant companion. I call my FitBit “Brian Kenny” because it gives me more analytics that I need such as BPM, Energy Burned, and Cardio Load and some I don’t need such as WAR, Exit Velocity, and Launch Angle. I once had a streak of 321 consecutive days of recording 10,000 steps or more (then got Covid), but now — with my kidneys beaconing for help — my daily goal is a minimum of 15,000 steps around the Northern California town where I have lived for more than 30 years. I try to pass 10,000 steps by noon and I know my wife and I will log 3,000 or more with our evening walks. That’s my slash line.

The morning walks used to be the most stress free part of my days in retirement. My logical progression of thought if you will. I could think about anyone and anything in quiet solitude. I would be thinking about my next book with legendary Connecticut high school and Yale football coach Larry Ciotti.

Not now. My quest for a kidney donor consumes my brain and my body is preparing for the inevitable. I try to stay in shape, stay positive and stay away from food and drink that cause my blood tests to spit out high numbers. I’ve stopped screaming for ice cream and ended my Dunkin runs. I miss my wife’s no-bake cookies and the #2 with Dr. Pepper at In-N-Out.

Thankfully, I’m losing weight, but because cysts are still growing on my kidneys and making them balloon, it’s resulting in a “PKD Belly” which is basically a beer belly without Sam Adams.

This is my life right now. My game plan. I’m trying to make myself the best possible candidate at my age for a kidney transplant.

I’m waiting in the on-deck circle.

Was The Rafael Devers Trade A Swing And A Miss?

 SAN FRANCISCO — How do you like that Rafael Devers trade now, Giants fans?

Yowza.

Another Orange Friday at Oracle Park produced another red flag alert for the struggling home team. Devers, acquired in a blockBuster trade by Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey on June 15, struck out four times. He is swinging and missing more times than the Gashouse Gorillas against crafty right-hander Bugs Bunny.

In all fairness to Devers, he is playing through groin and back injuries so he’s not in peak shape. But Devers addition to Giants hasn’t jump started their offense. Devers’ numbers with the Giants are below average for his career, yet not awful. As Red Sox fans will attest, he is a streaky hitter and he’s a bad streak now. Beginning with four strikeouts on August 1, he has struck out 18 times in 49 at bats this month and 67 times in 50 games with the Giants. He is currently seventh in the major leagues in strikeout this season.

When Devers arrived at Oracle Park on June 17, he said all the right things. There was joy in Bo Melville. The Giants won the press conference.

The Giants haven’t won much since. Going into Friday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays the Giants’ record since the trade was 13-23, the worst in Major League Baseball. The Giants were scuffling to score runs prior to the trade and targeted Devers to add some umph to their lineup. They have actually been worse. With Devers the Giants scored only 132 runs, tied for fewest in baseball over than same span.

The team ought to change the “O” in Oracle Park to 0. In their recent three-game home series against the San Diego Padres, the Giants were outscored 30-5. Prior to Friday night, they had lost 13 of their last 14 home games, the first time 13 games in a 14-game home stretch since 1958.

Consequently, the Giants have fallen to fourth place in the NL West for the first time this season and Giants fans are fed up. There were large patches of empty green seats in the ballpark on Friday night. There are calls for manager Bob Melvin to be fired and even suggestions that Buster Posey has lost his Midas touch.

Giants fans were ecstatic when Posey, the team’s Hall of Fame bound catcher, took over the president of baseball operations last year. He won over ownership and opened the pocket book.

Posey signed free agent shortstop Willy Adames to a seven-year, $182 million contract. Adames entered Friday night’s game hitless in his last 21 at bats. He was 5-for-49 (.102) over his last 12 games before he homered in the third inning. He is batting .223 this season and yet he’s batting third in the Giants impotent bating order.

Posey also signed big name free agent pitcher Justin Verlander in the off season. Verlander will take a record of 1-9 with a earned run average of 4.53 into Saturday’s start against the Rays. But, hey, the 42-year-old right-hander did record his 3,500th career strikeout last week.

Posey also picked up the option on manager Bob Melvin’s contract through the 2026 season. That announcement came on July 1 after the Giants had lost six of their previous seven games. Since that announcement the Giants have lost 22 of 36 games.

Under Melvin this season, the Giants have slipped fundamentally. They’ve been unGiant-like in the field and on the base paths. The Giants are 27th in the major leagues in defensive efficiency and their 69 errors — 14 by Adames — are the second most in the National League behind the gawd-awful Colorado Rockies.

Which brings us back to Devers. He is playing first base for the Giants — a position he refused to play this season for the Red Sox in a time of need. Presumedly the Giants offense would benefit from Devers playing first base which would allow the team to use Wilmer Flores as its designated hitter. But that scenario hasn’t sparked the Giants offense either.

Eventually Flores will be flossed out of the Giants lineup and Devers will become a full-time DH as the Giants inherited the 10-year, 313.5 million contact the Red Sox inked with him. That contract at some point will handstrung the Giants.

The Giants reached another low on Friday night. They loaded the bases with no outs in a tie game in the eighth inning and didn’t score. Didn’t even hit the ball out of the infield.

After the Rays took the lead in the top of the ninth inning Devers led off the bottom of the ninth. At least he didn't strike out. He doubled, but he was stranded on the base paths when Adames grounded out, DH Dominic Smith (another ex-Red Sox player) grounded out and Tyler Fitzgerald flied out.

Boos. Game over. Season over. 

Yowza.

Has Devers Trade Made Them The Boston Rush Sox?

 Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

A gifted offensive player, signed professionally by his team as a teenager, is in the prime of his career when the team suddenly and inexplicably trades him, citing his unwillingness to shape up and play defense. The sports world is aghast!

Jaws drop. Heads roll. SportsCenter Armageddon is upon us!

No, this is not the story of Luka Doncic, the Dallas Maverick-turned-Los Angeles Laker who is picturesque on offense yet statuesque on defense. It’s about Rafael Devers — Boston’s former unstoppable hitter and immovable third baseman — and it may be a never-ending story because it’s apparently how the Red Sox do business these days. They are leading MLB in chain reactions.

The latest haste — approved by Boston’s chief of baseball operations Craig Breslow and signed off by his boss John “Liverpool” Henry — was unloading their superstar hitter to the San Francisco Giants for four players with library cards in the great heist. They figured Devers was no longer a role model for the Red Sox Generation Z future.

“It’s a trade, man. It’s a trade. It’s baseball. It’s a business. That’s how it works,” Boston manager Alex Cora said from the visitors dugout at Oracle Park Friday night. “People have their opinions about the whole thing. Communication. First base. DH. Third base. The manager. The GM. The owners. Whatever. It’s a baseball trade. From my end I turn the page.”

Not so fast. Red Sox fans have trade trauma. They are still digesting the Mookie Betts trade to the Dodgers and that was more than five years ago. And what do the Red Sox have to show for that? Connor Wong, who has slipped to back-up catcher in Boston, is batting .154 this season, .108 (4-for-37) in games on the road. Wong has gone Wrong.

Chaim Bloom was the Red Sox general manager who made that idiotic deal and it ultimately cost him his job. Breslow, a left-handed relief pitcher for the Red Sox on their 2013 World Series winning team, replaced Bloom and he is probably on thin ice after trading Devers to the Giants on Sunday. Devers doesn’t call Breslow by name. He refers to him as the “GM” For Gone Mad?

Breslow said in so many words that trading Devers was aimed at improving the team culture. One would assume that Breslow, who majored in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University, would know a thing or two about team chemistry.

Right.

For starters, Breslow traded his best hitter who killed the Yankees, the team the Red Sox are forever chasing. For what? Kumbaya?! Kyle Harrison, a left-handed pitcher who might be No. 4 or No. 5 in the Red Sox starting rotation plus Jordan Hicks who is headed back to the bullpen which he hates? And two other players TBD — To Be Developed?

Amazingly the trade was consummated 46 days before the MLB trading deadline. Why not wait and see if Breslow could have gotten a better package of players for his superstar? Why not take time to repair his relationship with Devers? Why not pick a leader in the Red Sox clubhouse — a captain or veteran player — to step in and intermediate this mess?

 

Thanks to Breslow, they should be called the Boston Rush Sox now. They are trying to take the FasTrak out of Mediocrity.

In March of 2019, the Red Sox had Chris Sale under contract, but Bloom decided to give him an extension for five years and $145 million. They were under no obligation to resign him until 2020, but the extension meant he would earn $30 million per year from 2020-22 and $27.5 million in 2023 and 2024. Then Sale started breaking down like a house of cards in a hurricane.

Frustrated by injuries, the Red Sox ended up trading him before the 2024 season. Sale, healthy and rejuvenated, won the National League Cy Young Award for the Atlanta Braves. In return, the Red Sox received second baseman Vaughn Grissom who has played only 31 games with the Red Sox hitting .190. He’s currently playing for the Worchester Red Sox. The Woo Sox. Boo hoo.

By trading Devers and promoting top prospects Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer to join rookie catcher Carlos Narvaez, the Red Sox and Breslow are now committed to a youth movement and they are banking on it big time. Last year, after rookie centerfielder Ceddanne Rafaela had one good MONTH, Breslow and the Red Sox signed him to an eight-year $50 million contract after his 49th day of major league service.

Rafaela, who went 3-for-4 with a homer on Friday night, has spent the bulk of his Boston career as the team’s No. 9 hitter.

So did the Red Sox and Breslow rush to judgement too soon on Rafaela? Did they learn their lesson? Nah.

This year Kristen Campbell made the team out of spring training and had a great first week of the season as the team’s starting second baseman. He had one good WEEK in the big leagues and the Red Sox and Breslow, trying again to be proactive to lock up a promising player, felt the need to sign him to an eight-year, $50 million contract with just 49 days of major league service time. 

On Thursday, the Red Sox decided to option Campbell to the Woo Sox where he will play multiple positions including first base. Earlier this month Cora said he asked Campbell if he wanted to play first base, though it was reported that Campbell volunteered to play first base, which annoyed Devers who had refused to play first base after Triston Casas suffered a season-ending injury then refused to play third base after Alex Bregman was hurt.

Obviously Devers feelings were hurt when Breslow neglected to communicate with his best player in the off-season when the Red Sox were entertaining trading for Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado or signing free agent third baseman Alex Bregman. Bregman, a Gold Glove third baseman, said he would move to second base if needed to keep Devers at third in the best interests of the team. 

But Boston is a bad defensive team, so putting Bergman at third base and making Devers the DH would be an upgrade. However, Devers balked at the idea the instant he arrived at spring training. That problem could have been diverted had Breslow done his job and kept his best player abreast of the team’s maneuvering.

If you have a $300 million player — the so-called face of the franchise — you should be kept in the loop. Do you think the Golden State Warriors consulted with Steph Curry before trading for Jimmy Butler?

Instead, Devers came to Florida for spring training with a frown face emoji.

Breslow may think he’s the smartest person in the room, but he apparently lacks people skills. Devers, a proud Dominican player, didn’t help himself by not surrendering his position to Bregman come spring training, creating the narrative that he was not a team player.

Devers — who said on Friday he would have worked out at first base had the Red Sox asked him before spring training — took the slight personally and never backed off. Breslow reacted like he had no choice but to trade him.

“Nothing in this business is personal,” Cora said. “Xander Bogaerts is in San Diego and it’s not personal. Mookie Betts is in L.A. and it’s not personal. Raffy Devers is with the Giants and it’s not personal.”

Tell that to sellout crowd of 40,169 at Oracle Park Friday night when Devers’ new team faced his old one for the first time. It was personal. When Devers came to the bat for the first time in the first inning against his former team, there were loud cheers and a smattering of boos from Red Sox fans in the ballpark.  Judging from my Facebook friends and fellow Red Sox fans in New England, they bid Devers farewell and good riddance. Boston is a blue collar town and when someone doesn’t toe the company line and do what’s best for the team they are shunned.

Giants fans rejoice. You got a steal of a deal. But buyers beware. Devers failed to run out ground balls at least a couple of times in Boston and he isn’t a picture of fitness. In fact he is on the chubby side and he has been injury prone with such a violent swing. He’s a below average fielder and — with Matt Chapman at third and first base prospect Bryce Eldridge in the on deck circle — if it is the Giants’ intention to make Devers primarily a Designated Hitter that is a steep price to pay for someone with a 10-year, $313 million contract through 2033 when he will turn 36.

The trade and the timing of it made for great theater on Friday night, a tight and tense game. Devers went 0-for-5 at the plate and, when he struck out in the ninth inning against Red Sox closer Aroldis Chapman in a 7-5 Giants loss, Red Sox fans in the ballpark could be heard cheering. Their team, with or without Devers, has won eight of their last nine games.

They’ve turned the page, too.