Welcome to My New Life

Hi everybody, I'm Ed Randall.

By way of background, I lead two lives. In other words, I'm schizophrenic and so am I.

I'm popularly known for my work as a sports journalist for 36 years, principally in baseball. I've had the great good fortune to do play-by-play, cover baseball's jewel events, All-Star Games, playoffs and numerous World Series, anchored, reported, produced, and, for one unforgettable weekend, even ast in the chair of the immortal Bob Sheppard two seasons ago as the public address announcer for the New York Yankees.

Currently, I have only four jobs: over-the-air post-game analyst for the Yankees on WWOR-TV, host "Talking Baseball" Saturdays at 10 a.m. EST on Sirius/XM Radio's MLB Network Radio Channel 175, host "Ed Randall's Talking Baseball" weekends on WFAN-Radio in New York and work in the multimedia department of MLB.com.

All of the above is prelude.

None of it would be possible were I not able to write the following words: I AM A CANCER SURVIVOR with a 501 (c)3 charity I founded now known as Ed Randall's Fans for the Cure.

For reasons best known to herself, in a quick seven-floor elevator ride from the MSNBC studio to the lobby the week before last, I captivated (read: tricked) Arianna Huffington with my story (I can be a fast-talking New Yorker in the best sense of the word).

So, you're stuck with me.

I was 47 years old with no symptoms and no history of cancer in the family when I was shockingly diagnosed with prostate cancer.

And I mean shock.

It was not as if I had been forewarned at my annual physical the year before, as in, "Ed, your PSA is inchig upwards and we need to keep an eye on it."

Nothing!

(Note: There's a pause in the action as loyal readers are cautioned that until that fateful day, as a lifelong broadcaster, my definition of PSA was, of course, public service announcement).

I had gone for my routine physical, which I had been postponing all season long because of a fear of needles dating back to Dr. Donald Damrosch at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital at age five, damn him.

And it was routine.

Until the next day when my GP, Dr. John Cornwall, called to say, "Ed, your PSA is really elevated. But you know what? The laboratory may have screwed up. Come back in, we'll take another blood test and send it to a different lab."

Oh, great, another needle.

Soon thereafter, after stepping off the press truck riding through the Canyon of Heroes honoring the Yankees, my pager (yes, pager) went off.

It was Dr. Cornwall.

On this spectacularly beautiful day, after having the privilege of riding through a million ecstatic fans acting like a million fans should act, while standing on Broadway with my back turned to City Hall, John began talking to me in a manner he never has, before or since, halting, stammering.

He started talking about prostate cancer and how there was great care at his affiliate, the St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center and lots of information about it on the internet.

Mind you, it had taken me fully two days to invent mythology of some kind to tell my wife at the time when she asked this routine question: "How was your trip to the doctor?"

I had spent a lifetime ad libbing on the air but nothing had prepared me for this.

"Well, it was kinda, sorta, let's see. I, ya know, might have a, ya know, virus or something."

It wasn't like I was getting out of bed multiple times overnight to go to the bathroom nor did I have any interior pain.

Fast forward two weeks later, I'm sitting in the office of world-renowned Dr. Nicholas Romas, Chair of the Urology Department at St. Luke's.

On that November 8th day, he leaned forward from behind his desk in his lab coat, looked me in the eye and said, "Ed, you have cancer and you have a lot of cancer. But I tthink we caught it early enough and I think we'll be OK."

But it was not a death sentence.

Thank God.

More to come, much more, with lessons for all of us.