Bad bounces, good hands

The second time grabbed him by the throat, gripped him with a cold fear that left him weeping like a child.

Mike Lowell did not see it coming. He was in the middle of a magical year with the Florida Marlins in 2003, on pace for career bests in home runs and RBIs, with a sparkling fielding percentage and an All-Star invitation for the second straight season.

The only glitch was some irksome discomfort in his hip that would not dissipate. He went in for a routine MRI just after the All-Star break and was expecting a diagnosis of a strained muscle or an aggravated tendon.

"Mike," said the doctor somberly. "We think your cancer has come back."

No.

No, no, no. There was some mistake. Hadn't they been clear the first time, four years earlier? He remembered the words exactly.

"Congratulations," the doctor had told him after the initial diagnosis of testicular cancer in 1999. "If you are going to have cancer, this is the best kind to have."

The first time, when the cancer showed up during a routine exam, he was 25 years old, a newlywed, on the cusp of a promising major league career. The news was shocking but confusing, because he hadn't felt sick. The team of doctors explained that testicular cancer was very treatable, with a high success rate. No chemotherapy was needed. He underwent radiation and went on with his life. It was almost as if it never happened.

"Mikey is like that," explained his sister, Cecelia Curbelo. "Practical. Very analytical. Very calm. Organized."

When he was small, Mikey methodically counted his Halloween candy, allowing himself just one piece a day so it would last well past Christmas. He shared a room with his older brother Carlos, who would toss and turn until daylight, his bed a tornado of twisted blankets and sheets. But Mikey would wake up every morning in nearly the exact spot where he started, his bedclothes as neat and orderly as their occupant.

His siblings marveled at his discipline. When his high school coach told him he was too small, Lowell rode his bicycle to his friend's garage four days a week to lift weights. He eschewed pasta and sweets, dining on chicken and vegetables to maximize his conditioning.

His persistence was a byproduct of his background, of a family that had fled Cuba and learned to thrive under the harshest conditions. The Lowells took on every challenge together, allowing their faith to guide them. Mikey believed God would always protect his family.

But now they were saying the cancer had come back, and he was terrified. It wasn't just about him anymore. He had a child, 2-year-old Alexis Ileana, who spun him around, sending this orderly, disciplined man careening off-balance, reducing him to tears over the simplest of gifts, like gazing at her sleeping in her crib.

"The first time when I had the cancer, my wife and I had been married four months," Lowell said. "We had no responsibilities. But the second time, we had my daughter . . . now you are leaving someone behind."

He and his wife Bertica hastily packed for the five-hour drive to the physician's office in Gainesville, Fla. He called his parents, Carl and Beatrize, and Cecelia, too. They piled into their car to make the trip.

Little Alexis stayed behind with Lowell's in-laws, waving and smiling and blowing kisses.

"She thinks she's going to have a party," Lowell said. "I couldn't bear to look at her."

His family tried to keep the conversation light. They talked about baseball, the weather. They did not dwell on what the doctors said the first time, which was that testicular cancer hardly ever comes back, but when it does, it's an ominous development.

They pulled into the parking lot where Victor, his brother, was waiting. As Mikey walked toward the doctor, Victor whispered, "That man has our happiness in his hands."

Further tests were ordered. A biopsy was taken. The wait was so very, very long.

But when the doctor emerged with the results, he was smiling. The cancer diagnosis was inaccurate. Lowell had fibrous dysplasia, a structural anomaly of the muscle fibers.

"A freckle on my hip that on film looks like bone cancer," Lowell said.

He returned to the Marlins, to little Alexis, and his dream season continued. Florida went on to win it all, but not before Lowell broke his left hand when he was hit by a pitch Aug. 30, lost his place in the starting lineup, then seized it back after hitting a dramatic pinch-hit home run in the 11th inning against the Cubs in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. He went 2 for 3 against the Yankees, the team that originally drafted him, in the World Series clincher.

It was not the easiest path to glory, but Mike Lowell's resilience is what has molded him into the man - and the ballplayer - he's become.

The 33-year-old Lowell has produced another career year, this time in a Red Sox uniform. His 120 RBIs were the most ever by a Boston third baseman. He was the one constant in the lineup, a clutch performer who effortlessly moved throughout the order and produced wherever he landed. As teammate David Ortiz so succinctly noted, "Where would we be without him?"

Lowell is hoping this magical year will land him another World Series ring, and a new contract with his team.

He's heard the prognosis over and over again: Mike Lowell's future is uncertain.

No.

No, no, no. The end of a contract is trivial. His future is already cemented around a family whose strength and faith have taught him how to endure almost anything.

Escaping the homeland

Young Mikey used to sit transfixed as his grandparents recounted the trauma of packing up and leaving their home in Cuba on a moment's notice.

Lowell's father, one of four boys, was 11 when his own papa came home from work and announced, "Guys, we aren't going to hang around here."

Cuba was in turmoil, roiled by a new leader, Fidel Castro, who wanted unconditional loyalty. It was 1960, the Bay of Pigs invasion was looming, and there was still time for families who opposed the ruler to leave the country.

Each family was allowed one suitcase. A stipend of $125 per adult and $5 per child was allotted. The rest of their possessions, including cars, furniture, toys, clothes, property, and bank accounts, would be forfeited once they left Cuban soil.

Carl and his family fled to Puerto Rico with their meager belongings, where they crammed into a cousin's three-bedroom home. There were 13 of them sharing one bathroom.

Mikey's mother also escaped to Puerto Rico, but her cousin stayed behind in Cuba. He was detained by Castro's army and thrown into prison.

"They beat him with a rifle butt so repeatedly he lost his eye," Carl Lowell said. "When he died in prison, he weighed 65 pounds."

Carl did not share these stories with Mikey in formal father-son dissertations. The boy absorbed the information by witnessing his father, so strong and so proud, weeping as he recalled the past.

"When you are 10 years old sitting around hearing those stories, you feel rage," Mike Lowell said.

Bertica Lowell's family also suffered. Her father was a political prisoner who was carted away at age 19 and spent the next 15 years in jail, simply because he would not endorse the ways of the Cuban regime.

Shortly after Lowell was acquired by the Red Sox, a reporter asked him about Castro.

"I hope he dies," Lowell said bluntly, and the headlines screamed his declaration the next day in bold tabloid print.

He did not expect others to understand. How could they? When his teammates asked him about it, Lowell explained quietly, "If a politician says, 'I hope Osama Bin Laden dies,' everyone agrees with him, because that hits home after 9/11. Well, Castro hits home with me."

Grappling with injustice

He asked his father once why the world was so unfair. Carl Lowell told his son, "Mikey, life is full of injustice. How you handle injustice is what will shape you as a man."

The injustices seemed cruel, random. In 1992, after Hurricane Andrew had strewn debris throughout Miami, Cecelia was playing with a piece of a chain-link fence that had blown into the yard. She and her cousin were swinging it when it hit her in the eye. She was only 10, and while she still had vision in her eye after the accident, she developed an infection that ate away her retina. Cecelia was forced to lie on her stomach for 14 days to help the injury heal, then repeat the ordeal once the infection was discovered.

Her brothers were devastated. She would never regain her full vision.

"I admired her so much," Lowell said. "She didn't miss a beat. She went back to school, got straight A's. Life gives you obstacles. No one gets to cruise through."

His own struggles suddenly seemed so insignificant in comparison. As a sophomore at Christopher Columbus High School in Miami, Mikey was thrilled to be chosen for the varsity baseball team by Brother Herb Baker even though he was only 5 feet 6 inches and 130 pounds. But Brother Baker never played him; not even after he was demoted partway through the year to the junior varsity.

"He was such a skinny kid," Brother Baker recalled. "He was a hard worker and highly motivated, but his size was against him. He just didn't develop until later."

Mikey was 15 years old, and he was suffering. He wasn't the only one. His father, a former star for the Puerto Rican national team, was incensed to hear that parents flipped burgers at the concession stand to improve their sons' chances of playing.

That summer, Lowell took up with an all-star team that included kids from Coral Gables, a nearby public school. He wanted to transfer, but it was an agonizing decision for his family, who believed strongly in the Catholic education Columbus provided. Lowell was also an exceptional student, ranked third in a class of 300. But he was unhappy - and so was his father.

"I did not approach Brother Baker [about playing time]," Carl Lowell said. "That is not how we did things. Brother Baker was a gentleman off the field. But I had a dream almost every night that I punched him in the nose."

Brother Baker had no way of knowing what an inspiration he became for Mike Lowell, who switched to Coral Gables for his junior year. In a preseason tournament against Columbus, Mikey belted two home runs, then came in as a relief pitcher to record the win.

As fate would have it, Coral Gables also played Columbus in the regional playoffs. Brother Baker intentionally walked little Mikey Lowell during the game. And when Coral Gables officially eliminated Columbus, Lowell was again on the mound, credited with the victory.

Regaining his stroke

While Cecelia was recovering from her accident, a family member gave her a rock with the word "strength" emblazoned on it. Years later, when her big brother was diagnosed with cancer, she carefully wrapped up that rock and gave it to him.

The rock stayed with him through 2004, when he batted .293 with 27 homers, and in 2005, when the bottom fell out. Lowell slumped to a dismal .236 average with just 8 home runs and 58 RBIs. He also won a Gold Glove for the first time, but that proved to be little solace.

"What happened in 2005 killed him," said former Marlins manager Jack McKeon. "He worked so hard to find a way. But nothing worked."

Lowell tried different stances, different swings, different cadences. His mother reminded him that, after everything he had been through, this was not so important, but he was frustrated, and occasionally it showed.

"I have a little Youk in me at times," said Lowell, referencing current teammate Kevin Youkilis, who has been known to display intensity and frustration on the diamond.

"He was having a bad year, and he started tinkering with his swing a bit," said Red Sox manager Terry Francona. "Then he started mentally reevaluating some things. He got a little messed up, and everyone wrote him off."

Lowell turned to an old friend, Gary Denbo, a hitting instructor for the Yankees who had spent countless hours with Lowell in his rookie season, when he was still in New York's system. Lowell drove to Tampa three days a week to work with Denbo, who, after reviewing film of Lowell from 2002-05, determined he was coming around the ball too much.

"He asked me, 'When you got the pitch you wanted, did you hit it hard foul?' " Lowell said. "He was right. I was coming around. His thing is to hit it directly."

They planned to meet regularly through the winter, but in November Lowell was dealt to Boston. A Yankees hitting coach counseling a Red Sox third baseman?

"Too awkward," Lowell said. "We had to cancel the sessions."

Lowell quickly established himself in Boston as a model teammate, whether he was offering support to Jon Lester after a devastating diagnosis of cancer, or chatting with the Dominican players in Spanish about the unique challenges they face.

And Lowell's offensive prowess returned, too, as he hit .284 with 20 homers and 80 RBIs. But that was a mere precursor to 2007, when he emerged as the team's most consistent hitter, providing power (21 homers, plus career-best and team-high 120 RBIs) and production (career-best .324 average) in a lineup that was often woefully short of both.

Lowell has noted the buzz that the Sox will not re-sign him.

"Do I care? I absolutely do," he said. "But I don't think it's necessarily true. If we had a super prospect coming up at third or first, maybe I'd believe it. But there are very few good corner infielders on the free agent market. Why wouldn't you want a guy who is never a problem and plays hard every day and who has been consistent?"

Though Boston executives are mum on their plans, it's known the team will not offer Lowell a three- or four-year deal. In fact, the Sox may not tender him an offer at all if projections convince them that his production will tail off.

The Lowells have added a son to the family since they came to Boston, and like his sister, he speaks fluent Spanish and English. It would be nice to know the future, but Lowell said, "It's too late to do something now, too distracting. I'm not stressing over it, I assure you."

He has seen it all: as a high school bench warmer, a college stud, a 20th-round draft pick, a three-time All Star, a cancer survivor, a Gold Glove winner, a World Series champion.

Adding "valued free agent" to that list is something Mikey Lowell surely can handle.

Jackie MacMullan can be reached at macmullan@globe.com.