The Fuzzy Mic
After retiring from a 30-year, major market morning radio career, I'm often asked what I miss the most about the job. I miss 3 C's...camaraderie, creativity but most of all, conversation.
The Fuzzy Mic is built around creativity and conversation to develop camaraderie. The 4 focus areas are: Mental Health, True Crime, Music and Sports.
So, while The Fuzzy Mic allows me to fill some professional voids, it's my sincere hope that maybe you'll find something personally fulfilling in it too.
The Fuzzy Mic
The Invincible Will to Live From Sports to Survival with Jim Tietjens
When the odds are stacked high and life throws every conceivable challenge your way, some give up, but not Jim Tietjens. Striding through a storm of health battles that would test the mettle of the strongest souls, Jim's story is nothing short of miraculous. From guarding soccer goalposts with unmatched fervor to enduring two heart transplants, a kidney transplant, and cancer, his life is a testament to human resilience. Our conversation takes a journey through the emotional labyrinth of facing the same heart condition that tragically cut short the lives of his family members, and how the dreams of becoming a husband and father fueled his indomitable will to survive.
The heartbeat of this episode lies in the raw, powerful experiences Jim shares, proving that a foundation built on discipline, mentorship, and teamwork can be a lifeline through life's toughest trials. We gain insight into how the discipline from Jim's youth, the absence of a father figure, and the lessons from the soccer field and Catholic school shaped a leader who faced down death with the strategy of an elite athlete. The parallels between the sports arena and the battlefields of medical intervention are striking, with Jim highlighting the significance of robust support networks, both on the pitch and during his tenure at Barnes Hospital.
To cap off this compelling episode, we witness the profound human connections that transcend the world of sports into everyday heroism. Jim's role at Rawlings not only colored the pages of Major League Baseball history but also underscored the invaluable impact of community support and personal relationships in our professional endeavors. His book "Saves" and his induction into the Soccer Hall of Fame stand as beacons of hope and celebration of a life lived fiercely against the odds. Join us for this inspiring journey with Jim Tietjens, where each chapter of adversity is met with courage and every setback paves the way for another remarkable comeback.
Welcome to the Fuzzy Mike, the interview series, the podcast, whatever Kevin wants to call it. It's Fuzzy Mike. Hello, and thank you for joining me for another episode of the Fuzzy Mike, where entertaining and informative conversations inspire us and help us navigate mental health struggles and empower us through self-improvement. My guest today, the poster person for inspiration he's had two heart transplants, a kidney transplant, overcome two bouts of cancer one being stage four, non-hodgkin's lymphoma over a dozen battles with pneumonia, and now he has circulatory problems that cause leg issues and has already resulted in one toe amputation.
Speaker 1:I grew up watching Jim Tegins play goalie for our alma mater, oakville High School. This was back in the 70s, mid-70s. Actually, I wanted to be a goalie. Because of him, jim has received so many honors and accolades. Now, just to name them, we'd end up taking the entire time that we have together here. He's an inductee in the St Louis Soccer Hall of Fame and he was in the latest class of inductees to our Melville Oakville High School Alumni Association Hall of Fame, and that's how we connected. Jim has written a book about his soccer life and his medical triumphs. The book is titled Saves and it's available at inspiremestoriescom. Life sure is full of surprises, if you would have told me, growing up as a seven-year-old boy, that one day I'd not only talk with Jim, but that we'd become friends Wow, I wouldn't have believed it. Yet here we are. I mean, I grew up watching you play, bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know, I'm just a simple, we're just two simple Oakville guys, right.
Speaker 1:Well, that you couldn't get any more.
Speaker 2:True than that, yeah, and that's the good thing about it you just can immediately connect.
Speaker 1:I think that what we're going to talk about today with not only your professional soccer career, your career with the US youth national team, but the health battles that you've endured over your years, I can't think of a more mentally tough person in my life than you, jim Teagans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think that's probably one of the strongest things I got, and full credit to my mom on that. You know she, she just you know she lost her husband with three kids when she was in her early thirties and she never showed me anything but resilience. You know, I think it just came from her and it's not like a rah-rah thing, it's just something. When you see her every day get up and do it, you just kind of do the same.
Speaker 1:It's something that was instilled in you by your mom. You said that she lost her husband. You lost your father when you were two years old.
Speaker 2:I was 21 months. Yeah, just about two.
Speaker 1:Okay, and he passed away from a heart condition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he had. Well, they classified it as myocarditis because the real disease wasn't diagnosed yet at that time. Nowadays it's called idiopathic cardiomyopathy, which generally means sick heart, and the word idiopathic simply means your heart gets sick, but we don't really know what it's sick from. There's also a viral cardiomyopathy that comes from a virus. It's the same thing. Your heart gets sick and you can tend to recover from. Viral Idiopathic generally means it's hereditary and you're not going to recover.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you uh have uh the hereditary idiopathic cardiomyopathy. Uh, your sister, uh Karen, had that right, right yeah, and your father passes away at 32, Karen passes away at 32, and you had your first heart transplant at 32.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah. So when Karen passed away in 1989, I was 29, but I pretty much at that point began to prepare myself mentally that it was going to come. And so when it came it, honestly you know it wasn't, it wasn't a good feeling, but it wasn't a surprise. You know, I was prepared for the fight and I had an older sister, Lara, who since passed away in March of last year, but she didn't really start to show the symptoms until she was 40 years old. A lot of that was due to improved medications, to kind of hide symptoms.
Speaker 1:How do you prepare yourself for what you know is coming and you know what that fight's going to look like?
Speaker 2:You just don't let it intimidate you. You try to educate yourself on it in terms of can you survive? You know, where is it at? Where are they at now, in sort of the cycle of transplantation in 1992? Where was that? So, where was that at? But, like you know, I had three years when Karen passed, you know, and I started to feel myself slowing down. So it was just something that, okay, it's the next battle. It's going to be a battle, but in the grand scheme of things, it's probably only going to be an eight to 10 month battle. So if you can fight yourself through that at 32 years old, you still got a lot of time left.
Speaker 2:And I was married May 9th of 1992. That was two months before I was transplanted, which was July 2nd of 1992. So at that time, my dream was to be a husband and a father and that's what I focused on. And you know I, the doctors and the nurses led me to believe that they weren't going to let anything happen to me. They took their sort of keys or their signs Okay, they're in it. They're in it to save me. I'm going to be in it to do what I can to survive. So, you know, you start assembling a team of great friends, a medical team, you know you talk to your nurses daily to educate yourself on, you know, what will the recovery be like, what do you think about how long I could possibly live, you know, and you just kind of engross yourself in it to the point where you've even talked to people that have had heart transplants. They're doing very well, to the fact where it's just, it doesn't intimidate you, it's just another bump in the road.
Speaker 2:And the one thing that I always did is I refused to see myself as a patient. I always looked at myself as a person. And you know, because I was brought up sort of without a father and I leaned on my mother a lot and you know I was just brought up to. I mean, I was selling newspapers. You know when I was, when I was in sixth grade, I was a janitor at St Mary. When I was in seventh, eighth, you know ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth grade, I always was willing to work and sort of overachieve. And I took that into sports as well because you know I'm not a six foot one, six foot two athlete, I was a five foot 11 athlete, you know. So I had to. You know whether it was school, whether it was sports, whatever it was I had to overachieve the kind of and that was just kind of ingrained in me from my mother. So it just I don't want to say it was easy, but it's just what I did.
Speaker 2:And over the years, with more medical conditions coming on time and time again, I kind of became very good at it. I became being a good patient, which I don't like to use that word, but in the sense of being very patient. I just was very patient. I didn't try to rush the process. Ok, the process for this is going to be that long. Take your time, jim. There's no rush to get out of the hospital when you're in it. You know, don't worry. Day to day, just live it and fight it one day at a time. Get through that day. If you get through that day, you're one day closer to where you want to be.
Speaker 2:And that was just the frame of mind that always worked for me. And you know I I had. I wanted to live, I wanted to be a husband, I wanted to be a father, and that those two things right there really drove me. And I also felt the responsibility to provide for my wife and my family. So, as each hurdle came along, I did my best to to really work, continue to work, provide for them, and I really never wanted to bring the kids to doctor's appointments and this and that because I didn't want them to view me as a patient. And today, today, they don't. Sometimes that gets a little bit lonely, but it's just, you know, it's just like oh, it's dad, no worries, he'll be fine.
Speaker 2:You know I sent out a post last week that I was joking. When I went in for my second heart, I had purchased a 2016 Carvette right, 16, uh, carvet right, yeah. And I said, and that's true, my son was like, okay, dad, you go do what you need to get done at the hospital. I'll keep an eye on the carvet and I'll say, which is true, that I thought, I really thought I had the keys to the carvet with me in my little gym bag when I left for the hospital. Well, I was wrong, I wrong, I didn't. You know, I come home to find out it's got a surge in the odometer. So, yeah, my son took care of the car vet. You know, I not I don't say this mean, but he, he rarely, if any time, came to the hospital to see me because he couldn't see me.
Speaker 1:He couldn't beat down.
Speaker 2:He always saw me as this strong guy and I was okay. I understood that. Yeah, I understood that. But uh, you know I'm not Superman. I just know how to focus on the task at hand and not look out. You know six, 12, three months in advance. You know it's kind of like. You know work. You know the last. I'm sure you see it every day. What do you do every day as you're creating solutions to problems, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When you first see the problem it could be kind of overwhelming, right. But if you sit back, take a deep breath, get a team together, talk to a few people, take a deep breath, get a team together, talk to a few people, there's a solution to every problem. And no one ever came to me and said Jim, this is fatal, you're not going to make it so. Never heard those words. So in my eyes, I always had a chance and I always would slight the chance in my favor, just because I knew I was a good survivor. And I think that's a good word because I think that's what my mom was.
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of this can be read in Jim's new book. It's called Saves and it is a very fast read. I read it in a night and a half, I mean it is just. It's so easy to read. It's very compelling. It talks about you growing up playing youth soccer, then moving on to high school and the college ranks and then the youth national team and the pro ranks and playing over in Germany for a bit. But I want to ask you about two things you said right there. Number one how did early competition in soccer prepare you for the competition of battling for your life?
Speaker 2:That's one thing is maybe an overachiever. I'm so competitive I don't like to lose in anything, especially when I was younger, so I was on a winning team with the same coach in grades one through eight. So when you talk about the things that prepared you and I didn't have a father at that time I was brought up in a Catholic school very strong foundation. I worked for the priest in the Catholic schools, a janitor, for many years. So I became very disciplined, very focused, you know, very passionate. Even if I was the janitor in the summer I wanted to have the cleanest floors in that school. You know, my soccer coach followed us because he had a son on the team. So he was a father figure for nine years or eight years.
Speaker 2:Right. So that whole time I felt that you know, the foundation was being built, a strong foundation, by the church where I worked, the coach where I had that, you know I was making up, or this was kind of making up, for the fact that I didn't have a father figure. So, you know, I never, I never looked at it as a crutch. And then, you know, I was a quiet kid.
Speaker 1:How can you be a quiet kid and be a goaltender?
Speaker 2:How can you be a quiet kid and be a goaltender? Well, on the field I was able to express myself. That's one place which, on the field, I was always very vocal. And you know, by the time I've gotten to high school, right, I had played the game eight years, so I'd seen it from a goalkeeper's perspective for eight years, where you're looking out onto the field and you're kind of seeing that you know you're almost like a key. Came to high school, I had already been seeing the game in front of me for eight years and had a very high soccer IQ on the field. And then when I started playing goal in high school which wasn't to my sophomore year it just was an easy transition because now I had very good players in front of me and kind of being able to direct them and speak on their level. It just made it a lot easier and so I just felt very comfortable in that, whether it was baseball, soccer, whatever it was.
Speaker 1:Well, jim was the best soccer goaltender in high school in the history of St Louis. He will be humble and deflect that praise, I'm sure. But you talked about having a great team in front of you, and this goes into the great team that assembled at Barnes Hospital to save your life, not once, twice, three times, four times, and you mentioned that team earlier. You said surround yourself with a good team. That was one of the mentality aspects that I read about in saves. You said surround yourself with a good team. That was one of the mentality aspects that I read about in saves, where you said they gave me the protocol, they gave me the plan, I just had to stick to it. That's basically how you approached the life-saving procedures on you.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all you've got the preparation, so there's a team that's with you during the preparation, right. And then you've got the event, and there's probably a team that's with you. Then that might be some of the same, more different, you know, some different whatever. And then there's recovery for the event, getting back into normal life. So I mean again, I've always had great friends that love me unconditional in Oakville it's a small place, right.
Speaker 2:When I got on the heart transplant list, I got on it in February. It was my birthday, february 25th of 1992. And I didn't have, I didn't get transplanted until July 2nd of 1992. And I actually became sick in October of 1991.
Speaker 2:So, starting from October of 1991 until I got transplanted in July of 1992, I'm constantly in touch with this team of medical people at Barnes Hospital. I'm getting to know them on a personal basis. You have your nurse coordinator. Every cardiac doctor, every cardiologist on the heart transplant team has his own nurse coordinator, all right. So she's the one that really is kind of taking you by that. She or he is taking you by the hand, taking you through the process, so they're your go-to person.
Speaker 2:So, because I was scared and I wanted to learn, I mean there were times when I I mean I remember traveling with Rawlings and being on the road for hours at a time with them, just trying to take in knowledge what about this and how's this going to work, and what about this medication and what about that, you know, and how long will it take for the wound to heal, what about my muscles, et cetera. So just trying to, you know, engross myself with so much knowledge that I didn't fear it. It was now just go through the process, jim, and my process was trying to survive till transplant, because I had a lot of ventricular tachycardia beats which can take your life instantly. Those are the type of heartbeats that took the life of Hank Gathers.
Speaker 1:Oh, Loyola Marymount basketball player.
Speaker 2:Right, and also Reggie Lewis. It causes sudden cardiac death. So I had a lot of those type of beats which make you very susceptible to sudden death. Now there's medication that can help with that, but you know, the medication isn't always going to be perfect. But you know, I know that the time where the doctor finally said to me Jim, you're in the hospital and you're not going home till you get a heart, and you're not going home till you get a heart, that was music to my ears, because if I'm going to have a sudden cardiac death episode, I want to be in the hospital and not at home.
Speaker 2:So you know I had certain things I had to do and they had to do to get to the transplant Transplant itself not the toughest surgery in the world. You know they've done it, it's just two and a half three hours. But then you got to plan for the world. You know they've done it, it's just two and a half three hours. But then you got to plan for the recovery and you know, being an athlete and being still in good shape at 32. I mean, I got home and you know, after I did a few things because a few other things cause I was a newlywed I got in the car, I dropped, drove right to the gym and you know it was like the second day and you know I wasn't supposed to be driving, but that was just my style and I've done that style ever since and it works for me and the doctors know it works for me.
Speaker 1:There's one thing in there that you were talking about with tachycardia, and did I read correctly in saves, that your heartbeat was at 2,400 beats per minute at one time.
Speaker 2:No, what would happen? It would have 24 consecutive tachycardia beats. So instead of a normal rhythm, your heart would go into a tachycardia beat for 2,400 consecutive beats before it went back into a normal rhythm. So I think in my book it'll tell you about when they sent the doc uh police out looking for me.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, I went to the uh doctor on a Wednesday he had sent our earlier in the week and I had a Holter monitor. In those days Holter monitor was like the old Sony cassette. You strapped to your belt and put a cassette in it and I think I took that back to the doctor's office on a Thursday evening or Thursday late in the day and they would, uh, they analyzed it, I think, the next morning and that's where they saw all these episodes of beats that could kill you, where prior to that time I wasn't having lots of strings of those. And that's when they got a hold of the police and they found me that night at a rehearsal dinner at the couple's house at St Louis University. I mean, I still remember clear as day because it was about 10 o'clock, 10, 15.
Speaker 2:The thing was just starting to break. I was the first guy into the lobby area to get my overcoat and I was there by myself and a policeman walks in the door he was a security guard from the university Walks in the door, he has a little piece of white paper and I'm the only guy there. He says so. He says to me I'm looking for a guy by the name of Jim Teagans and I looked at him and I knew, before he said a word, I knew he was looking for me. I knew he was looking for me and we said I'm looking for Jim Teagans. I just responded very calmly that's me. And he gave me the note and said call your doctor right now.
Speaker 1:That is how sick Jim was that he's at a rehearsal dinner for a wedding and his doctor puts the police out to find him and bring him to the hospital immediately.
Speaker 2:So at that point I hadn't been on the transplant list, so at that point I hadn't been on guy and he didn't know me from Adam, and that's the thing, you know that he's. That couldn't have been an easy task to kind of pull the strings to get ahold of his nurse, find out, you know, get ahold of a friend. But that's the kind of people that were on my team and that's where I was blessed. I mean, you know, I mean I don't it today already, but I mean, when you look at the whole story and where we're at now, I've lived a pretty charmed life.
Speaker 1:How charmed is it when you have one heart transplant, a second heart transplant that leads to two bouts with cancer. It also leads to a leg condition where your arteries aren't pumping enough blood to your feet, so you've had a toe amputation. How can you say you've lived a charmed life?
Speaker 2:well, let's look at it this way, kevin, all right, I grew up in a in oakville. I still have my friends that I won the state championship soccer team with 1976, 1976, just 48 years, right, and we talk about it today. We were teammates then and we're brothers now. Right, I went to play soccer at slew, played two years there, had fun, had a good time, played professional soccer, played on the youth national team. I had jobs. I loved. I love working at rawlings, sportinging Goods. I loved being involved in baseball. I loved.
Speaker 2:It was always my dream to work at Anheuser-Busch. I did it. I loved it. I mean, it was a time in my life. I have two kids. I wanted to be a father.
Speaker 2:My two kids are negative to the bad heart gene, all right, which means they can never get it, but they can never pass it on to a child of theirs. So I have a granddaughter that's nine. She doesn't even have to be tested, you know. So that's what I mean. It's like, you know, when you look at these episodes, as little as bubbles, bubbles that last eight months, ten months, a year, five months, four months. That's what I mean when I say I've lived a charmed life.
Speaker 2:Now, you know I will say the leg thing has been challenging because it limits your mobility and I've had 15 surgeries in the last 36 months. But right now my legs are in a good spot. They're in the best spot they've been in in four years. So I'm going into a phase of my life where my kids are out the door doing well on their own and that's really why I wanted to write the book and sort of try to recognize and give back. I have started to do some public speaking. Barnes Hospital, gold Farm School of Nursing has asked me to be their commencement speaker at their graduation in August of this year for their nursing class. I mean, you know, these are just great things I get excited about. You know that I get that opportunity to speak to them and hopefully make a difference, because you know, saves really is all about everyone. It's been in my life to touch my life and be a part of the team, you know you speak about.
Speaker 1:You talk about speaking at the Goldfarb School of Nursing. How proud of you. How proud are you of Annie, your daughter, who graduated first in her class from there and is now working in the same hospital, same department. That has saved your life twice.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, annie doesn't. Annie is a gamer right. Annie is a gamer right. Annie played Division I volleyball at Florida State and sometimes I like to refer to her as that little. Don't ever think that little S-H-I-T can't get it done, because she can get it done at any level and she's so cool and calm under pressure. And I've seen her at the hospital, you know, come down to see me when I've been there and interact with the nurses and the doctors that have come in to talk to me and I'm so, so proud of the way she handles herself, you know, in that environment and the leadership she, leadership she shows, um, but she's never amazed me. I mean I, I always. So I've never said annie amazed me. No, she, I always had that. I always knew annie had it. She had the it factor in anything she ever did, whether it was sports or school, when she put her mind to something. Never count that little one out.
Speaker 2:And she's done some things in the hospital where, you know, she had something that I'll share because it's really unbelievable. She was treating a patient in ICU who had a heart issue. The family would come in frequently to see this patient and she noticed that one of the family members would continuously have swollen ankles. When he came in and she talked about it with him and suggested that he get connected with the doctors Is it possible that what's going on in your family is hereditary? And she connected him with a doctor and then found out he did have the condition. And I mean that's something that's pretty crazy and pretty impressive for a fairly rookie nurse to see this and have the you know sort of moxie to say listen, I think you need you know, but she's seen it all right.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I was going to say that from experience. So yeah, I mean I'm proud, as proud as can be with her. But you know, like I said before, nothing surprises me with her, because she's just always someone was a gamer and she had the, had the it factor.
Speaker 1:One of the things that you'll learn by reading the book saves is that your first of two heart transplants, your first donor was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident and you get the news that you're going to be a recipient of their heart. You're praying in the elevator. Why are you praying in the elevator?
Speaker 2:Well, there was a family grieving. So what happened was there was a lot of people at the hospital that night and as they started to wheel me to the elevator, I had just stopped and said let's. There was seven or eight people. I said, let's get into a circle and you know, we're, we're very happy right now. My heart was very sick, but there is a family that's really hurting right now. So you know, let's just get together and say a prayer and remember that family tonight.
Speaker 1:That is, uh. You know, one of the harder things to accept with transplant is that in order for you to get that heart, somebody has to die. So you said earlier that you have a responsibility to your family and to your ex-wife, julie, to beat this and continue to live. Do you have a responsibility to that family whose heart you carry?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I mean, and you know, when I met I never met my first heart donors family I tried to communicate with them but I'd never heard back from them. I did find out their child was an only child, which you know had to be devastating, and at that time I know it was a pretty young heart. So they lost an only child who was young. Now I did hear back from my, the mother of my heart donor for my heart and kidney donor for my second heart, and her son was 23 years old. He was a combat medic in the National Guard and unfortunately he took his own life and he was an only son. She raised him. Her name was Cheryl. Her name is Cheryl. She's in Cape Girardeau, missouri. She raised him without a father, so she was so close to him and you know very, very, very hard for her. I had tried to reach out to her in November of 2018 because the holidays were approaching, so I thought, well, this is a good time to maybe reach out a little bit before the holidays, you know, and just kind of introduce myself, and I did and kind of introduced myself, introduced a little bit of the history of the family and why you know this is so meaningful to myself and for our whole family and, you know, did not hear from her for a few months. But in March a letter arrived in my mailbox and you know, you kind of know when you get a letter you're not used to seeing. I kind of knew immediately this had to be the letter from the mom. And at that time I was doing very well. I mean, I was recovering well, I was exercising, I was fit, I was healthy. I was actually recovering quicker for my second heart transplant at 58 than I did for my first heart transplant at 32. And I couldn't quite figure that out. Well, as I opened the letter I was in my bedroom and I was like I sat back on the bed and as I opened the letter a picture fell out of the letter and it fell right at my feet. It was facing me and it was a picture of a very handsome young man, um, holding his three-year-old son. And and this guy was the picture of health. He was in, he was like five, nine, but he was just like you know, ripped. You know it was a combat medic in the national guard. He was just a healthy, strong looking guy who took care of himself. And when I saw that picture I just I realized that, oh, now I. Now, you know, I thought it was me like making this huge difference. Right, I'm something special. And then I just kind of smiled to myself and shook my head and said and I thought it was me. No, it was him. You know it was him.
Speaker 2:And you know, every year when I have my annual heart review, you know the numbers that come back on my heart for his heart, just off the chart. So there's something called ejection fraction that is a decent measure of your heart. There's something called ejection fraction that is a decent measure of your heart. With my first heart, my ejection fraction always hovered around 55, which is a mid-normal 55, which is, yeah, you can operate fine with 55. No one's ever in the 80s or anything like that. With Colton's heart, it's always been right around 70, which is a very high normal. So it's just, it's just been amazing heart.
Speaker 2:And you know I feel that not only do I have to owe the doctor's thing, you know, I mean I have to treat this like gold and you know, I have to make sure his mom knows that I accept this responsibility and I will. I will never do anything in my life to damage this artery, you know, the heart and the kidney, and I mean I owe that to his mother, I owe that to Colton and I also owe that to all the people that have been in my life to save me. And I think that's another thing is I've always taken good care of myself, so it's been somewhat easier for me to recover and get on the path to recovery. You know, I've always been an I'm a worker bee. Right, there's always room for worker bees in this world, even in the business world, and so I'm always ready to go, ready to get to work. And you prepare to succeed. You know, not, not preparing to succeed is like preparing to fail exactly, definitely so.
Speaker 1:Uh, in the book saves there's a very tender picture. Uh, there is a picture of Colton and his three-year-old son, but there's also a very tender picture of the first time you met his mother, cheryl. By the way, colton was an only child too, so obviously Cheryl is grieving immensely when he takes his life. But tell us about this very tender moment you had.
Speaker 2:So we were meeting in Mid-America Transplants office. I had told her all along that, hey, listen, if you want to call this off at the last minute, you know that's fine, you're in charge here. You call the shots, you know. So I was out in the parking lot just waiting to make sure it was OK to come in, and it was not just waiting to make sure it was okay to come in, and it was, and I I walked back into the offices and there was about a I don't know 40 foot walk between me and his mother, cheryl.
Speaker 2:And you know I'm thinking the whole time. I'm just asking God, you know, please put the right words in my mouth, and and and and. Maybe no words are right, but you know it's certainly not a joyous occasion, right? Um? So you know you're taking that time to walk over her, over to her, and you know we embraced and I whispered, you know, a few things into her ear and I really credit with God, to God, because you know I don't remember word for word, but I know that what came out was very good and you know it was a tearful moment.
Speaker 2:His friends were there, you know she immediately got to hear his heartbeat inside of me, so it was a very tearful moment, um, but we've started a friendship and I generally see her at least once a year. I'll go to Cape Girardeau and make sure that um I'm there, because she has a memorial ceremony at the cemetery. Um, I keep in touch with her, um, you know I don't want to overdo it, but I want her to know every day that you know his organs went to the right person and probably the best possible person that could ever receive them, because I am going to take so good care of those arguments.
Speaker 1:Well, that's interesting that you say that, because in the book saves that Jim Teagans has written uh, his friends actually said that to Cheryl after they met you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was uh. So we have one of the friends is still in St Louis who I see periodically. He's a real estate agent and he actually owns a boutique store in Kirkwood which will be doing a book signing and I stopped by there and say hello often. The other friend, I believe, is still in the military and he's stationed overseas but comes back and I would just been communicating with him. I made sure I sent him a book and to some extent I want to feel like part of the family, without being the family, because I don't think you can ever be that close to them. But I want them to know I'm always here for them if they need me, why did the heart transplants lead to other transplants, the kidney transplant?
Speaker 2:Well over the years. I mean the medication that was designed for heart transplants in 1992 was really medication that was over time would hurt several other organs in your body, one being your kidneys. Because at that point, 1992, they were saying okay, we think you're going to last about 15 years. That's a pretty good run. If you get 15 years, that's great. Well over right. Some people are doing better. They're outlasting 15 years.
Speaker 2:There's still a lot of data being gathered during the time of 1992 where they don't have all the record. You know they don't have all the data that they can kind of predict things and they're going to err on the side of being cautious. Kind of predict things and they're going to err on the side of being cautious. You know they probably didn't have that some, but probably not as people as athletic as me going into it pretty good shape right, where maybe some of the people going into came into it with problems already. So it was harder for them to recover and, you know, get away from those habits that maybe caused them illness in the beginning. So you know, as time goes on, especially hereditary illnesses where they affect you at younger ages people have a lot more reasons to live far. They're younger, they can recover quicker.
Speaker 2:The medicine evolves, gets better, but the initial medicine really started affecting my kidneys early on and after 26 years of my first heart, they damaged the kidneys to the point where I had to go on kidney dialysis for three years dialysis for three years Now. During that three-year time I had to get several stents put in my heart. So my heart function was beginning to decline, which it does faster than a normal heart will. A transplanted heart will, just because it's transplanted. There's reasons and I don't know what they are that will cause you to have coronary artery disease quicker than a normal heart.
Speaker 2:So it was beginning to go downhill. Nothing like my old heart. So the rule of thumb is you needed a kidney transplant. If you're going to need another heart transplant within the next five years, you better. You might as well get them at the same time from the same donor, because your chances for survival are going to be better, much better for long-term survival. So they decided to do it together and you know, at this time it was my kidneys that were struggling the worst, not my heart. Now I could feel my heart declining when I'd be at the gym and things, but you know it wasn't shot Like my kidneys were absolutely shot at the time.
Speaker 1:Why do, uh, the transplants? Why did that lead to cancer?
Speaker 2:You're on immune suppressed drugs so you're basically shut. The medicine you're taking is shutting your immune system down. It's trying to fool your body into thinking that the heart is not a foreign invader. When your immune system is up and running strong, it would generally fight off the heart, reject it. You would get infections. So to make sure that your body doesn't reject your heart, they're shutting down your immune system. All right, to accept your heart, not kind of fooling it. And that makes you more susceptible to cancers as well, because your immune system is suppressed, right. So you're more susceptible to cancer, to infections, to viruses, to a lot of different things. So during 1992, they told me the number was 10 to 15% more susceptible to cancers. Nowadays they're going to tell you more, 35 to 40%. So the number is a lot higher that you're going to get some type of cancer and I've had.
Speaker 2:I go to the dermatologist every eight weeks because I get cancers on my face, a metallurgist every eight weeks because I had cancers on my face. I've had four Mohs surgeries now, um, which is a remover in cancerous little pieces from my face. And I've had uh, you know I had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, stage four in 2003. And that was a, that was a tough battle. That was a really tough mental battle where, you know, I sort of isolated myself as much as I can because you just felt so miserable that you didn't want to talk to anyone, because it just hurt to talk. Because it just hurt to talk. Now my friends were there and they'd always come by and they'd make me laugh, but it was just, it was a personal battle, one-on-one with the cancer, and that was. It was a hard, gritty battle because you know it's like every two weeks you're getting poison put in your body to kill the cancer and then you've got to recover from that poison to be able to do it again in two weeks and sometimes it's very hard to recover from that poison. So so it becomes a just very hard mental, um tough physical battle where you you know what's coming after your treatment and you just get yourself ready for that battle.
Speaker 2:Some sessions there were 12 sessions of chemo. You know, some it's easier than others, but when, when the tough ones come, it's very, very hard. I had an instance where I think I was in my sixth chemo treatment and I got really, really sick and they didn't know. You know they're doing all kinds of tests to find out what it was from. Well, they found out that what it was from is one of the chemo medications there were four of them, and one of them is called the red devil and the red devil had attacked my lungs, it damaged my lungs, and so they had to immediately stop that one.
Speaker 2:And at the time there was a lot of concern. My lungs were pretty bad and you know, I remember the doctor coming in to me and telling me that you know, she said you know this could end up being fatal. And in addition to removing that chemo, that one, and now there's three left and continuing on doing those, I had to fight for sort of survival of my lungs, and every time I would get a lung test they would tell me that my lungs were not improved, and that was very frustrating because I actually felt myself getting a little bit stronger.
Speaker 1:I was going to say. There's one person in the book who says, no, my lungs are fine. I know my body better than anybody else does.
Speaker 2:I wasn't having as bad episodes, removing this one chemo, but I was in the hospital a lot for my lungs and I remember being in there and they were going to let me go home and they tested my lungs and said there wasn't much, there really wasn't improvement. And you know, I remember going home and going right to the gym and you know, every day I would go there and get a little bit stronger. And you know, went in again one time before Christmas and they said, yeah, not really seeing much improvement. And I was like you know you guys don't know what you're talking about, because I can tell you right now my lungs are getting stronger.
Speaker 2:And then I remember going back like two weeks before Christmas and went into the room, had the test and they were all there kind of dumbfounded, scratching their chins and said we can't believe what we're seeing. And they said we expected you back here the next day after we released you. We expected you back. And I just said to them I said listen, I told you knuckleheads that I was. And I said in a kind way, I said I was getting better. I said you've got to listen to the patient sometimes I don't know.
Speaker 1:Just, you just keep pushing yourself, you know I mean you know, I mean, I guess, I guess when it's a matter of life and death, you have to keep pushing yourself. But at what point do you? Because you're a very faithful person. I was raised Catholic as well. We went to, I went to a rival church, st Francis of Assisi, and you were at uh.
Speaker 2:At uh, st Margaret Mary, but at what point do you throw your hands up and say, god, how much more are you going to give me? Um, you know, I I told eight and Annie was six, so I had all the reason in the world to keep fighting. And I remember being at Annie's first Holy Communion and right after treatment, and house full of people and having a party, and you know, kind of having to dismiss myself and go lay down. But you know, when you have two kids that age and a wife and you stood before God at the altar and committed yourself to being there for them, yeah, I just there wasn't any give up in me. You know, I mean it just yeah, it was hard. And you know, like I've told Annie before that you know, I mean it, just yeah, it was hard.
Speaker 2:And you know, like I've told Annie before, that you know, sometimes I would give myself five minutes after I was diagnosed with something. I give myself five minutes and it was five minutes where probably I was very angry and very verbal and after that five minutes it's done, it's gone, there's nothing else. You know it's time of fire and I remember being at work one day and I was leaving work and I got in my car and you know, it's 50 yards to the end of the parking lot. By the time I got to the end of the parking lot to pull out on the street, the anger was gone. It was just like okay, let's go bring it on. Bring it on and that's it. You know, it's just kind of like okay, god, if that's what you want me to do, I'm going to do it. You know, bring it on. Just just be with me when I need you, because I can't do this alone.
Speaker 1:You know, that's all I ask. You know you were talking about how sick you felt when you had stage four non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. But I remember in the book Saves it's written by my goaltending hero and Alumni Association Hall of Fame inductee and St Louis Soccer Hall of Fame inductee, jim Teagans. You were talking about one of your 12 battles with pneumonia and I was ripping out my heart just knowing how sick you were. The sheer rawness of what you're talking about in the book. How did you overcome 12 bouts of pneumonia?
Speaker 2:It seemed like that my pneumonias would come at the same time every year. My worst one came at one of our 1976 alumni soccer gathering, which is in January every year. I was at the banquet or at the party and was fine. I was at the gym in the morning, went to the banquet, you know one o'clock by three o'clock. It was horrible. I drove myself to the hospital. I think that was my worst one. That was a pretty bad pneumonia. And, uh, annie, they called Annie home from college. Yes, so they must've thought there was a chance. I wasn't going to make it. So when Annie walked in the door me being from Oakville, being dollar conscious, I looked at my wife, said what's she doing here? I'm like who's paying for that flight? Is the school paying? Are we paying? And my wife's like well, they told me to get home. I said why didn't you? I said why didn't you talk with me? I said trust me, I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 1:We have talked extensively about all of the health issues that you've had throughout your life and we haven't even talked about your time at Rawlings and the things that you implemented in Major League Baseball through your affiliation with Ken Griffey Jr, through your affiliation with Mark McGuire. You were actually a part of the Rawlings staff when McGuire hit 70 home runs.
Speaker 2:Right, that's right. It was some good days at Rawlings and I've actually, I think I told you I reconnected with those guys, so those were some amazing days. You know I was a baseball fan, like everyone else in St Louis. I mean, let's face it, we love the Cardinals Grew up in that. I grew up in the era of Brock and Gibson and you know, just saw some amazing teams. You know, just saw some amazing teams, you know. So, yes, I was a fan.
Speaker 2:And to be able to come home and work for Rawlings Sporting Goods for 13 years Rawlings is a small company so you get to know everyone in the company. There's 120 people in the office, you know. You know the president, you know everyone, you see him every day. So it was just a a great experience. I connected back with those guys about a month ago and they were their new office up in Westport Great new office up there and they created something called the Rawlings Experience.
Speaker 2:Takes two floors of the Westport building and it is an interactive and educational sort of instructional type of interactive experience for kids to come up there. They can hit, they can look and they can design their own gloves, they can have batting helmets fitted, they can have bats fitted for them. There's just so much they can do. And, in addition, they have their pro players there, so that's something called the pro room, where the pro players actually come in and they design their own gloves in this room.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of like you're in a room where you're you know you're picking out your paint and your carpet or your flooring, you know they're picking out the color of their glove, the color of their lacing, what's the color of the web on the glove? There's 30 different Rawlings, labels, different colors. What do they want that to be? And they could be doing this on an iPad and projecting it on a big TV and instantly changing the color of the Lazy. No, I want that, or I don't know what that. I want to have this and see oh, that's perfect, that's exactly what I want. So the players' gloves are all individually made.
Speaker 1:That didn't happen without you, Jim Tegens, and the experience you had in spring training with then-rookie Ken Griffey Jr.
Speaker 2:So I like to think so, but there may be some that argue that. But I honestly think it's the truth. Ken Griffey Jr was a rookie and he comes pulling into camp in his white BMW all white. The windows were completely tinted black. He had gold-spoke rimss on it. I think he might have been in his teens uh, maybe close to 20 or 20 when he had all this gold stuff um, hanging off when he got out of the car. But I mean, he was, he was a pure kid, he liked to have fun.
Speaker 2:So one day he came to the early in spring training he had a black trapeze glove and he asked me to relace the glove farm and to put this you know, we were in what we call a raleigh sports caravan, so I was sitting in a truck that he can actually come up on and walk into and see. So he was able to see other laces that I had hanging around and I had laces that were brown for brown gloves, but they actually look closer to gold this year, um, and they were really. They really popped. So he came up in the truck and said, hey, can you relace my glove and can you put that that gold lacing in there really wasn't gold, but it looked kind of stylish. Um, so I relaced his entire glove with this brown slash what he called gold lacing and then trans trapeze glove. There's a lot of lacing in those gloves, so when you took it after it was done, it looked pretty cool I mean it really looked pretty cool and it certainly stiffens it up a lot like it's a new glove.
Speaker 2:And then as I traveled around from spring training, uh, team to team and see each team, they you know I had guys come up to me and say, hey, you know what you did to griffey's glove, can you do that to my glove as well? So I had to have a bunch of new lacing shipped in because I was running out of lace, because we were we were totally was lacing gloves.
Speaker 2:It didn't even need to be laced so, but it was a lot of fun. Um, one year McGuire's glove ripped and he asked if I could sew it up. He was using a black first baseman's mitt and I said I can fix this mark, but I can only fix it with a brown piece of leather. Um, and I fixed it in two significant areas where the leather leather the brown leather would be very visible in his web. So he liked it and he started having the gloves made like that from the factory. So I can't say that I was the guy that brought all the color into it, you know. But before the Griffey thing I started to do it just as a, you know, sometimes just to get to know a few of the players break the ice with them. It'd be a good way of doing that.
Speaker 1:How many baseballs per year does Rawlings go through just in major league baseball?
Speaker 2:I know that every game there's 10 dozen balls prepared per game. You can see how quick balls get thrown out of the game. But you know, every year 10 baseballs are rubbed up with the mud before the game. Um, and again, I haven't been around rawlings in a long time, but that was secret mud that comes from somewhere down in the south, yeah, where that mud comes from. And they still rub those baseballs up every game before the game with 10 dozen balls.
Speaker 1:Can you explain to me and I played baseball for 22 years and I've never understood this uh, a ball gets hit ground, ball throws over to first base, they throw it back to the pitcher and he uses it again. A ball bounces in the dirt at home plate, they throw that ball out. I mean, I would think that there would be more damage to the ball that's been hit and fielded yeah, that's a great point, you know that's.
Speaker 2:That's a different way of looking at it you know the ball's been pounding around a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right. Um, I saw something on a sports show espn, it was about a month ago where there was actually a ball hit the major league game where the cover came off. Wow, and that was, uh, yeah, I didn't think you'd ever see that in the game. Uh, actually, when I was at rawlings I learned how to sew baseballs.
Speaker 2:So one of the things we did on the truck when we went around the country during the season and stopped at sporting goods stores, we stopped at a lot of mom and pop sporting goods stores in small towns and we put on these shows how to make a glove, how to make a bat, how to make a ball were, uh, or actually would show them how you sew the baseball. Yep, I had, uh, I had two panels of a baseball brought to me by a hollywood director, producer I forget his name, but back in the day he was a big name he had two panels of a baseball flat that he brought to me and had Muhammad Ali's name autographed on him. So I was able to sew them, you know, on around the ball again and give them back to him.
Speaker 1:Very cool.
Speaker 2:Years, years ago, something was going on with the DEA and something was going on with the DEA and they really wasn't a factory where we were making baseballs. But there were people down there that were able to take the cover off the baseball and re-sew it on and investigate the baseballs themselves to see if anything was inside them. So, you know, to not set off any red flags, this had to be done very quickly. So they sent a Learjet down to the airport down there and had the people at Rawlings undo the balls and undo them back up.
Speaker 1:So yeah, nothing is sacred with criminals.
Speaker 2:We would always joke with the guy down there that had to do it. We said, yeah, I heard there's some people in town asking about you.
Speaker 1:You had a very interesting opportunity and this speaks to your tremendous humility, Jim Tegins. The night that Mark McGuire was going for home run number 62, his agent had special tickets for you. You turned them down. What were those tickets?
Speaker 2:Well, he had told me that I was going to be sitting next to the Maris family and I said you know, jim, his name was Jim Miller. I said, jim, I can't do that. I said, listen, I'm a mid-level guy. Here at Rawlings, the Marist family is going to be all over the TV. I can't be on the TV, you know, as this mid-level guy next to the Marist family when at this same game is going to be you know, the top executives at Rawlings Sporting Goods. So I said, you know, great, you know, I appreciate that, but you know, let me see if we can figure something else out. But I did end up at the game and you know I just said no, no, no. You know, I had a ton of respect for the president of Rawlings and you know I see Rawlings as a big part of baseball history.
Speaker 1:The Rawlings president. Howard, you hope to live your life in such a noble and compassionate way that you get a compliment like this on your way out the door.
Speaker 2:You know, I felt like that when I left. My dream was always to work at AB and I had that opportunity, anheuser-busch, when I was 40 years old. And I felt that when I left Rawlings there was two or three people that I had to go to and tell them personally that I was leaving and to thank them for their confidence in me over the years. Howard was one of them. And Howard just said to me and again, you know your shy kid probably lacked a little confidence, but he said to me, jim, he said never has a better man walked through that front door. And I mean that just I've never had a compliment like that. It just meant the world to me. It's almost like you saying I used to come and see you play. I wanted to come and see you play where you know, you kind of stopped me in my tracks there because I never heard that before. But yeah, coming from how, from Howard, was just amazing.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, getting to see the Rawlings people it's been about three weeks now. I went up to them, I saw them, visited with them. Three weeks, three days later, the phone rings. They asked me to be their guest speaker at their sales meeting. Uh coming up the next week and they say Jim, we're going to give away your book, um, as a gift to all our salesmen. So just uh went up there, spoke amazing event, had amazing time and uh now keep in touch with those guys regularly.
Speaker 1:Saves is the name of the book. You can get it at inspire me storiescomcom. Why the name Inspire Me Stories?
Speaker 2:Jeff came up. You know I can't take credit for that name and honestly I have to admit I can't take credit for the name saves. At first I wasn't crazy about the name saves but the more I heard it the more I liked it, because the more it really expressed what the book was about. It's not about my greatest saves, which really speaks to soccer right. It's about all the people that have been in my life to save me, so's really it's not a soccer book. You know there's soccer in it, there's some good stories in it, but really the book is about all the people that have been in my life to save me. So that name grew on me and I have to give Jeff full credit for that and also full credit for inspiremestoriescom as well.
Speaker 2:It was about a two year project and a lot of now I'm just hitting the marketing and the sales hard. You know it's not about making money at all because you know you're generally not going to make money on a small book like that, but I want it to do well and what I'm finding is a couple things. I'm finding that I'm meeting a lot of people that knew of me and it seems like when I sell the books on our own website, wwwinspiremestoriescom. I see every book that comes in, I autograph it, and every book sold in St Louis, I'll deliver it myself. So I'm delivering books 30 and 40 minutes away. But what I'm finding is every book I deliver, there's a story related to it. There's a story that might connect me and the buyer, or me and the reader, indirectly not directly, but indirectly. Pretty cool Some of the stories that are coming of it.
Speaker 1:And it's real cool and the book is fantastic. It's called Saves, it's written by Jim Tegens and you can get it at inspiremestoriescom. Brother, when I was watching you play in 75 and 76, I never thought I'd have this opportunity to talk with you and I definitely never thought I'd have the opportunity to say man, I love you brother.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, I love you too. And again, we're just good Oakville people, good roots, you at St Francis of Assisi, me at St Margaret Mary, and just trying to do the right thing, and so a couple of things. We got the Soccer Hall of Fame coming up. One of the reasons I'm looking forward to hall of fame is because you see, guys like you know you mentioned pat mcbride and then you know, in my opinion, guys like that, you know, their soccer royalty, him, al throws, guys that are in the national soccer hall of fame, pete sarber, things like that you know. So it's just good to shake a hand and just still have them with us and show the respect for them. So I'm looking forward to that night as well.
Speaker 1:It's great to still have you with us, buddy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Keep fighting the good fight, man.
Speaker 2:I think I got another 20 in me. I really do. That's what I'm counting on.
Speaker 1:Take care buddy.
Speaker 1:We'll be in touch, all right. All right, have a good afternoon, all right, you too, jim Bye. So there you go. When you think you've had enough and life just keeps piling on, think about Jim and let his mental strength and self-belief inspire you to keep going and do things in yourself that you never thought were possible Again. Jim's book is titled Saves, and if you live in St Louis, jim will personally deliver a signed copy to you. Go to inspiremestoriescom. My thanks to Jim Tejans for joining me. My thanks to you for listening and watching on YouTube To help the Fuzzy Mic grow, and this is the only way we're going to. Please give it a rating, a like, subscribe on YouTube and share episodes with anyone you think could use a dose of inspiration. I'm grateful for any help you can give me.
Speaker 1:The Fuzzy Mike is hosted and produced by Kevin Kline. Production elements by Zach Sheesh at the Radio Farm. Social media director is Trish Kline. For a weekly dose of pickup-inducing laughter, check out the Tuttle Klein podcast. It's the podcast I co-host with my longtime radio partner of 25 years, tim Tuttle. We give you new episodes every Wednesday. Join me next Tuesday for another new episode of the Fuzzy Mike. I'll be just as surprised as you to see who, if anyone, joins me, because, well, I had a scheduled conversation back out until a later date. So I'll see you then and thank you. That's it for the Fuzzy Mike. Thank you, the Fuzzy Mike. With Kevin Kline.