06:54 AM
12/18/24
12/18/24
May 21, 2004
Colorado Rockies' former prospect Ben Petrick retires due to Parkinson's disease...at age 27.:
He was diagnosed with the disease when he was only twenty-three years old. He doesn't blame the disease for his failure to become a star, but his early numbers (before the disease was diagnosed) did indicate he was on the path to being a good-to-great baseball player.
Some people think Michael J. Fox was exposed to a virus or bacteria that eventually led to Parkinson's (1, 2). Perhaps something similar happened to Ben Patrick, because it's so rare for young people to develop Parkinson's: Johnny Cash, Billy Graham, Pope John Paul II, Muhammad Ali. (Three out of the ordinary posts in a month about Colorado Rockies: Larry Walker's farm, the woman who was stabbed.)