DETROIT _ What do you say to a person who has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer?
On Wednesday afternoon, after Jay Allen told the remaining fans filing out of Comerica Park to travel safe and come back soon, I told him I was sorry for waiting until now to introduce myself.
Mostly, I was sorry he has to deal with this.
Allen, a couple weeks shy of his 60th birthday and just five months into a dream job as the Tigers' public address announcer at Comerica Park, has Stage 4 bile duct cancer. The disease, his doctors say, has already spread to other organs in his body. One doctor said the life expectancy is 12-to-18 months. Another said 18 months was extremely optimistic.
He received the news on Tuesday afternoon, nearly two weeks after his physician called him and said, "Jay, I just want to let you know this is not the news I want to give you, but all indications are, it's cancer."
And when Allen walked into his doctor's office three days ago, he was expecting something. Maybe not this exactly, because who could? But something.
"I had told the Lord many times," Allen says. "I think of, the only time. ...
"Can I speak freely with you?
"This is the only time you see God really move, is when he has to. He's always moving, but when you got your back against. ... When you're in the lions' den, he shuts the lions' den. ... So I always said to the Lord, 'If there's ever a time where I could go through something or do something, so that people know who you really are, I'm willing to do that for you."
