Finding Purpose When You Lose Your Identity a Conversation with Dave Dravecky

In this inspiring podcast former baseball star, Dave Dravecky and Dr. Chuck F. Betters talk about how cancer destroyed Dave’s successful baseball career and Dave’s struggle to deal with not only the loss of his career but understanding his true identity.

In the 1980s Dave Dravecky was a long-sought-after relief specialist. His pitching helped key the San Diego Padres' Word Series run. After a few years in San Diego, Dravecky moved on to San Francisco, where he was a key part of their World Series run.

However, things in 1989 would take a bitter turn for the Youngstown, Ohio native. Experiencing weakness in his pitching arm, he was examined by the Giants team doctor. The doctor noticed a lump in Dravecky's arm and sent him to a specialist in New York. It was there that Dravecky learned his pitching arm was ripe with cancer. Draveckey underwent treatment in hopes on returning to baseball.

In September of 1989, Dravecky returned to the pitching mound, mere months after under going treatment for cancer. In one appearance, Draveckey's arm, weakened from treatment, snapped and broke while he delivered a pitch. He would re-break the same arm weeks later celebrating his team's berth in the World Series.

Any full-time comeback for Dravecky would be forever denied when in 1991, in a surgery to save his life, his pitching arm was amputated above the elbow. Dave Draveckey's plight inspired the Giants, though they were unable to overcome an earthquake, and an ultra powerful Oakland A's line up. Dravecky retired officially from baseball after losing his arm. But his story was just beginning. 

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