Brothers step up to plate, raise money
By JILL YOUNG MILLER
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, June 4, 2007
ATLANTA — One night when Jeff Francoeur was in Florida for spring training, he checked his e-mail and saw photos of a blond boy he remembered playing football and lacrosse.
In another photo, he saw a young man in a hospital bed with an 18-inch slice down his spine. It was a friend's kid brother, Drew Leathers. Tears filled Francoeur's eyes.
The Atlanta Braves' power-hitting right fielder was entering his third major league season, known as a free swinger trying to find discipline at the plate. Off the field, he had struggled to find a cause to back with his star power. When he learned that Drew suffered from a disorder that causes painful tumors that grow to the size of baseballs, it was like seeing a pitch down the heart of the plate.
This was the cause. This was the pitch. He swung, calling Drew's big brother Chad Leathers, whom he grew up with in Lilburn but hadn't talked to in months, maybe years.
"He was like, 'Hey, man, I recognize that I can use my power for good,' " Chad Leathers recalled.
Now Francoeur has a new team — the Tumornators. That's the name Drew and his brothers, Chad, 22, and Ben, 21, gave their fund-raising effort to fight the disorder that afflicts Drew, who is 19.
For every home run Francoeur hits this season — seven so far — he donates $500 to the Tumornators.
The brothers' goal is to raise $100,000 for the Children's Tumor Foundation, in New York. So far they've raised more than $30,000.
Drew's rare genetic disorder, Schwannomatosis, has no cure. Its hallmark is chronic, debilitating pain. Noncancerous tumors, attached to nerve cells, sprout on his arms, legs and back, and they grow inside him. One baseball-sized tumor dwells between Drew's left lung and heart.
The only treatment is pain medication and surgery. Since elementary school, Drew has endured 13 surgeries to remove or shrink 16 tumors. Drew hasn't let the disorder debilitate his attitude, although it has halted his pursuit of the sports he loves.
He had to quit playing football and lacrosse after his sophomore year. He didn't give up on Parkview High School's football team; he became the Panthers' videographer. His senior year, he had surgery on four spinal tumors shortly before prom, where he was named king. He graduated in 2006.
"To have the attitude that he has is unbelievable," Francoeur, 23, said in the Braves locker room last week before a game against the New York Mets. "Some people would take it the other way and just go off and be mad and be bitter."
Francoeur and Chad played football together from elementary school through Parkview High. A group of players rotated weekly spaghetti dinners at each others' homes. Francoeur remembers Chad's mother, Fran Cone, scolding him for gobbling dessert before dinner. "She makes the best chocolate chip cookies."
When Francoeur learned of Drew's plight, it humbled him, he said. "Most of us athletes, we take it for granted when you get to run out on the field and play every day."
He did have his own brief encounter with disability before he was called to the big leagues. "I was hit in the face with a fastball, at 95 miles per hour," Francoeur said. "For about a week they didn't know if I could play. I had two surgeries all over my face. ... So just a little experience like that, not even near Drew's, knowing that I might not be able to do what I love anymore, absolutely it puts things in perspective."
Drew and his brothers watch the Braves and text-message Francoeur to cheer him on. If he hits like last season —29 homers — he'll owe the Tumornators a pot of money.
You wouldn't know at first glance that anything is wrong with Drew, unless he lifts his shirt to reveal a tumor or turns a leg to reveal a scar. His scars measure six linear feet. "I pretty much live a normal teenager's life," he said at his mother's house. "I've got a girlfriend. Got a job working at my dad's store."
Still, he can't run, he can't jump. "He moves slowly and with much effort," Chad said.
Drew is 6 feet tall, athletic-looking and handsome, with blue eyes and a charming smile. His brothers, he said, "have been amazing. They caught me when I fell, you know?" Then he flashed a scar on his upper arm and started laughing. "I realize now I could show off some sweet scars to the ladies," he said.
Drew plans to become a high school math teacher, and this spring finished his first year at Georgia College & State University. This summer, he's working at his father's sporting goods store, where he can lie down to rest. He also plans to travel on a church mission to Costa Rica, and to squeeze in yet another surgery.
Every day, he battles pain. Sometimes it's like "a hammer with needles all on it that you just hit me really hard with," he said.
"He struggles to be a normal kid," said Dr. Anna Janss, Drew's physician and director of neuro-oncology at the Aflac Cancer Center at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. He had to quit sports "because of pain caused by these lumps growing in his muscles and along his nerves. He would almost have to tiptoe off the football field."
Schwannomatosis affects about one in 40,000 people, said John Risner, president of the nonprofit Children's Tumor Foundation. Because it's an obscure disorder, research money is scarce, he said. "If they raise $100,000, that will easily be the most raised for Schwannomatosis this year" and could open exciting avenues for research, Risner said.
Said Drew: "Never in my life have I wanted to be known as the tumor boy. But whenever I think about that there's other people out there, I guess somebody's got to do it."
Drew's first known tumor was on his left arm. He and his brothers called it "Fred." Drew would holler if they were roughhousing and hit Fred. In the fifth grade, he had the tumor removed. "We didn't really think anything about it," Drew said.
"Then I started getting more and more taken out." Drew's 13th surgery was at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Tumors were taken from his calf, knee, thigh and arm. He returned home on Christmas Eve.
"That was a pretty emotional evening," Chad said. "Then and there we said, 'We need to do something about this."
Ben is a math major at the University of Georgia and a musician. He has written and recorded a song for Drew called "Little Brother." Chad is a 2007 UGA photography graduate. He used Ben's song in a video he created and posted on the Web, at Tumornators.com.
Then, one spring night an old friend checked his e-mail, saw Drew's pictures and stepped up to the plate. Said Francoeur, "I'd love to next year be able to do $1,000 a home run."
