http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/local/states/texas/northeast/8817432.htm
WATAUGA - Isaiah Bugarin stands kicking the hardwood floor at the Sport Clips shop, his face full of determination. Eight of his teammates from his baseball team, the Marlins, chat away, seeing who's taller, daring each other to touch the big- screen TV in the waiting area.
Shop owner Bobby Forrest asks for the bravest Marlin.
The other boys stare at one another.
"Isaiah?" Forrest calls out.
Isaiah, 8, walks to the station on the right and sits down. It's a hot Texas Tuesday grown into a humid evening. Rain is on the way. It's been 21 days since a sonogram revealed the cancer in Isaiah's left kidney.
The days since then have included surgery and chemotherapy, nausea, debilitating fatigue and the promise of 15 more grueling weeks of treatments. Nothing his teammates can do will change that.
No doubt Isaiah will lose his hair along the way. And on that count, his teammates pledge, he will not go it alone.
Nine 8-year-old boys from the Summerfields neighborhood, south Keller and Watauga will all shave their heads so they'll look the same. Kids who spent two and three evenings a week learning the fundamentals -- turning double plays, running out grounders, playing as a team -- showing the grown-ups a thing or two about sticking together in a pinch.
"We're going to make you look good," Forrest tells Isaiah. "And there's some pizza in the back. That will be a good trade-off, won't it?"
Isaiah flashes a wide smile. He looks sort of like a 3-foot-tall Pudge Rodriguez.
The clippers start to do their work.
Moms click away with cameras.
"You'll swim faster," dad Ted Beal exhorts his son, T.J., who's cracking a mischievous grin and wiggling his nose like a rabbit. "You got hair in my nose," he says over and over.
In a few minutes the boys are bald. Shared embarrassment makes everyone giddy.
"Coach is doing it, too!" shouts Cooper Thanisch.
And, sure enough, there's coach Keith Zellmer sitting down in a chair, and then the assistants, and then some of the dads, too. Moms' cameras click even faster. Isaiah vacuums his father's hair as it floats to the floor.
Like all things the Marlins do, Isaiah's haircut turns into a family affair. Not just the Bugarin family. The Marlins family.
Getting the news
The Marlins played the undefeated Indians the night of May 11. The forecast was for storms, but the game went on as planned.
Isaiah spent lunchtime at the Cook Children's Northeast Center in Hurst, getting a sonogram.
During a well-child checkup four weeks earlier, the doctor noticed a lump in Isaiah's pelvic area. At worst, it was an enlarged spleen, the family was told. The doctor ordered an X-ray. When it came back inconclusive, he ordered a sonogram.
Brandi Bugarin, Isaiah's mother, learned the results first, right before game time.
There was a softball-size tumor in Isaiah's kidney. The family would learn it was malignant, a nephroblastoma, a Wilms' tumor most common in younger children.
Brandi called her husband, Drew, at work.
From the hospital an hour later, Drew called Rhonda Zellmer, the coach's wife. The Bugarins had signed up to bring the snack for Wednesday's game, and he didn't know if they would make it.
"I just remember trying to hold back the tears," Drew said.
Zellmer asked him how it went.
"Not good," Drew replied.
The Marlins rallied around the Bugarins that evening. Isaiah played his usual position of pitcher. The doctor had said to keep things as normal as possible.
Isaiah would be in surgery by the end of the week, but his parents didn't tell him he was so sick.
He threw out two runners and caught a pop fly. The Marlins eked out a 15-13 win over the Indians.
Two days later, Isaiah arrived for surgery at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth.
There are no indications that the cancer has spread. After 18 chemotherapy treatments -- and as long as nothing else happens -- Isaiah should live a healthy life.
A show of support
The Zellmers visited Isaiah in the hospital. In the car on the way, Colton, the auburn-haired catcher, nagged his mom about getting a really close haircut for the summer.
Shaving his head for the summer would be a great idea, maybe the greatest idea ever. Wouldn't it be great if he did it to support Isaiah? Isaiah's hair would be falling out, so wouldn't it be great if his buddy did the same thing so he wouldn't have to go it alone?
His mom didn't like the idea.
"But I wanted to," Colton said.
But the coach -- dad -- finally gave in, agreeing that it was a great idea, too.
Youthful pursuits
It's Thursday, 11 days after Isaiah's surgery. Thunder growls a few miles south of soggy Foster Village Park in Watauga. The downpour has let up just enough for the Marlins dads to line up their sons for a quick, drizzly warmup. In the dugout, the moms are huddled together, old friends keeping dry, catching up with gossip.
Drizzle becomes soft rain. Many of the Reds have already headed home. Fifteen minutes from now, it will be storming again.
But the Marlins hang around until the game is called.
No. 7 -- the same number as Pudge -- arrives. He stands quietly near the moms at the dugout entrance. Eating a cup of Cheez-Its, he watches the other boys play as he holds an inflatable bat.
"Hey, Isaiah, you going to bat?" the coach asks. "Glad you're eating, buddy."
Isaiah nods, grinning sheepishly, ready for action.
But his mom quietly tells the coach no. The other parents take their sons aside, reminding them not to hit him or play rough.
The sky turns dark gray. Not enough Reds come back to field a team, so it's a Marlins win. A 9-5 season. Not too bad.
The coach informs the players that they'll all be getting their heads shaved on Tuesday. Nothing out of the ordinary. The last year of coach-pitch baseball is finished. Call it a rite of passage. Normal.
"Rice Krispies!" they abruptly shout in unison, running over to where the designated mom is handing out the after-game snack.
A few minutes later, most of the Marlins are gone. Only Isaiah and Colton remain.
Isaiah is hitting himself whap! whap! whap! on the head with the inflatable bat.
"Isaiah, no," his mother says, not really meaning it.
Beneath the flailing plastic and the sound or airy whapping, Isaiah is smiling impishly. "But this will make me sleepy," he mutters.
Sister Jessica, 11, runs up. She's barefoot and ankle-deep in mud, playing tag with Colton, the catcher. Isaiah laughs, energy waxing, wanting to join in.
"Isaiah, please be careful," his mother says in a different tone. She means it. Sort of. "I don't want you running around too much."
So naturally Colton picks up a ball. Isaiah cocks his inflatable bat. He's a lefty. Colton's throws the ball high, over Isaiah's head really, but Isaiah swings up and down like a lumberjack chopping wood.
"We don't want swinging of the bat," his mother warns, and this time there's that slightly higher pitch in her voice that parents get when they worry.
Beneath his uniform, a strip of tape still wraps around Isaiah's torso, as long as the cut the surgeon made when he removed Isaiah's tumorous kidney. "It's just tape," his father says, not mentioning anything beneath the tape. "You don't want it to pull."
The talk turns to next season.
Finally, Isaiah admits that he's really scared of something after all. Not of being sick. Not of medicine or a slow recovery. He's got a more pressing fear to deal with.
Next year the Marlins will move up from coach pitch to kid pitch, and Isaiah is pretty worried about getting beaned.
Wilms' tumor
Kidney cancer most commonly found in children about the age of 3. The cause is not known.
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