Diabetes Double Amputee Is A Role Model...but Not A Hall Of Famer

Ron Santo is nothing less than a baseball hero. He has also been through some heartbreaking times. More than most, he knows how to stay hopeful.

If you don't know him, he has too many records to list. Here are a few. Santo played third base for the Chicago Cubs from 1960 to 1973. In his career, he was the only third baseman in all of history) to go eight seasons with 90 urns-batted-in. He has won 5 Golden Glove Awards. He was also a 9-time All Star. In addition he is true team player as evidenced by the fact that from 1966 to 1974 he held the NL record for assists in a single season.

By any measure he should be a Hall-of-Famer. But again this year its not in the cards. "Everybody felt this was my year," Santo told the Chicago Tribune paper on Monday, in his typical gracious manner, even though the years are slipping away.

He is already 68 years old. No spring chicken for a double amputee with diabetes. "To me, two years, because of what I have with the diabetes and [getting] older, it's like eternity," he said in a recent interview. He is not alone, because every 30 seconds, another leg is cut off due to diabetes related complications. Statistically, most people who have diabetes are dead within 5 years of having amputations of both legs.

Santos has fought with diabetes for decades, but kept it a secret for most of his career with Cubs. In the late 1960?s he started having trouble. Unfortunately he ended up with diabetic foot ulcers. They can develop gangrene. This happened to him and he had over 24 surgeries as well as partial amputation of both legs. But he still roots for the Cubs from the bench. "I don't know how he does it; his spirits are always up," says Savelli. "I'm sure he's taking it like a man. Ronnie's a hard-core guy. He has to be to take all he's taken. I'd have been dead a long time ago."

Santos is one of those lemons-from-lemonade types. Whenever he is not working as a member of the Cubs broadcasting team, he is fighting diabetes through community involvement and fundraising. Thirty years ago he started the Ron Santo Walk to Cure Diabetes. In that fundraising foundation he has generated $60 million to help fund research for juvenile diabetes. He keep high hopes both about a cure for diabetes, as well as his chances for induction into the Hall of Fame.

Personally, I hope he gets both.