The odds of David Hess taking the mound in a major league game are long. For the 32-year-old pitcher, they wouldn’t be the longest odds he has faced in his life.
Hess, who is three years removed from his last professional game, had to pause his baseball career following multiple cancer diagnoses over the last four years.
The most recent — Hess was diagnosed with angiosarcoma of the lung in 2023 — was the most troubling. The rare, aggressive cancer is associated with a low survival rate, but he responded well enough to treatment that he did not need surgery to remove the growth.
In February, Hess underwent a scan that showed no evidence of the disease.
