SAN DIEGO-- Mason Miller was a 20-year-old sophomore at Waynesburg University preparing for the next stage of his baseball career, when he received some devastating news. He had type 1 diabetes.
"They found it on a urine test for an internship I was doing," Miller said early Saturday afternoon "I'd lost a bunch of weight, kind of had all the symptoms but didn't really know what was going on. Spent a couple of days in the hospital, educated and everything I need to do as a type 1 diabetic to take care of myself. Within two weeks, I pitched again, kind of just taking it in stride, That's the only way that I felt I can do it, just one day at a time, learning more and more about yourself and how to live with it."
Miller had a message for kids who are enduring the same chronic disease.
"It's hard, nobody especially kids, it's juvenile diabetes and it's so hard to watch kids go through any sort of health issues. I always look at it as a type one diabetic, I was grateful we had the measures and the technology to treat it and do the things that you'd like to do. I've had moments in my life where I've been fearful that it would withhold me from doing things that I wanted to do but that hasn't been the case. I sit here and get to do one of the coolest jobs in the world and play baseball for a living and I do all that as type one diabetic. I hope to be an inspiration to kids that they can do anything they want to."
Miller, who stands 6'5 and is listed at 200 pounds on the team website, explained what changed for him physically when he received the diagnosis as a 20-year-old pitching prospect.
"When I got diagnosed, I was about 155 pounds. I'm standing here now about 235. So pretty much skin and bones to putting on enough strength that my body's able to withstand a long season now and be able to produce enough power that the fastball jumps the way it does. It's been a drastic change but it didn't happen overnight, a lot of hard work in there as well."
"I threw about 90 coming out of high school, I lost probably 10 miles an hour. I was throwing about 80 before I got diagnosed. That came back quickly and then it's kind of been two or three ever years for the last seven years or so."
The velocity and heat has returned and then some. In his Padres debut on Friday night versus the St. Louis Cardinals, Miller elicited a few ooh's and ah's from the 44, 933 fans at Petco Park with his signature 100+ mph fastballs. Miller has also recorded the hardest pitch in the majors this season with 104.1 mph versus the Blue Jays on July 13th.
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