Gary Carter?s death yesterday at the age of 57 from brain cancer is the most recent in a string of deaths from the disease to strike the baseball community.
Relievers Tug McGraw and Dan Quisenberry, outfielder Bobby Murcer and managers Dick Howser and Johnny Oates, also former players, have succumbed to glioblastoma, the type of cancer that caused Carter?s death.
Quisenberry was the youngest, passing away at the age of 45 in 1998. Murcer, the longtime Yankees player and broadcaster, was the only one to reach 60. He was 62 when he died in 2008.
Though many have looked for a connection between baseball and glioblastoma, there seems to be no direct link, according to a report in Time last summer.
Carter and Oates were catchers and, as such, susceptible to concussions which have been shown to do all types of damage to brain tissue. But there is no proof concussions lead to brain cancer.
All of the five played in the pre-steroid era and got sick long after their playing careers ended. And, while chewing tobacco may lead to cancer of the mouth and jaw, the magazine, citing doctors connected with Major League Baseball, reported it hasn?t been shown to lead to brain cancer.
Time reported up to 18,000 Americans per year are diagnosed with the disease, .00006 of the U.S. population of 300 million.
Over the course of 25 years, since Howser?s death in 1987, approximately 5,200 men have worn major-league uniforms. And the six reported cases, the magazine said, are in line with the incidences of brain cancer in the general U.S. population.
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Source: http://robsmoke.com/2012/02/17/carter-latest-former-player-to-die-of-brain-cancer/
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