UW-bound Stenson on fast forward
AUBURN — Catch me if you can.
That's Bailey Stenson's attitude when she's on the softball field. The speedy shortstop regularly outruns infield grounders. She constantly beats throws to second base, collecting stolen bases in bunches.
Stenson, a senior at Auburn High School, takes a similar outlook on life in general. Because she already has been chased by a deadly disease, Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), and left it in her dust.
Catch me if you can.
At age 18, Bailey Stenson is a cancer survivor of nearly 15 years, and she goes about everything in her life with gusto. She realizes she's one of the lucky ones.
"Sometimes I think, 'Wow, things could have been way different,' " she said. "My life could be way different, so I've got to take it and run with it, I guess. I got a second chance, basically, so I've got to live it up.
"I don't want to sit back and let things happen. I have to go out and try to make things happen, not only with sports, but with life."
Stenson, whose dark hair grew back thicker and curlier after her chemotherapy, admits she can be forward at times, especially with boys.
"I don't necessarily ask them out, but I might say, 'Hey, you're good-looking. What's your number?' I'm pretty much entertainment," she said.
Cassidy Jones, her good friend and teammate, describes Stenson as "very outgoing, funny, crazy, wild, really out there," as well as an extremely hard worker who goes after her goals.
"You can't stop her," Jones said. "If she wants something, she works hard for it."
She proved that last summer when she learned how to bat left-handed, earning a scholarship from Washington.
She is batting .583 (35 for 60) this season and has had at least one hit in 16 of the Trojans' 17 games, with two or more in 13 of them. She has struck out only four times.
Even more impressive are Stenson's base-stealing numbers: 26 steals in 30 attempts this season. Over her four-year career, she has swiped 51 bases in 60 tries.
"She's tough to stop on the base paths," Auburn Riverside coach Chris Leverenz said. "I don't think I've seen an athlete run like her in quite some time. You pray she doesn't get on base."
Defensively, Stenson has committed only three errors in 79 chances, a .962 fielding percentage, despite playing shortstop for the first time after starting at second base the past three seasons.
With her speed, few balls get by her. Stenson was voted to the Star Times All-Area team at second base last year, when she batted .453 with 17 stolen bases. At Washington, she is projected as an outfielder.
Stenson does not shy away from challenges, but none have been bigger than the one she faced at age 3 ½ , when she was diagnosed with ALL in October 1991. Originally, doctors thought she simply had a lingering cold. But when she became lethargic and complained of leg pains, her mother knew it was something more.
She took Bailey to her own physician, who took X-rays and ran numerous tests.
"As a parent, sometimes you know something just isn't right," Kim said.
The doctor told Kim she needed to take Bailey and her blood work to Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center, and Kim's fears worsened. She took her mother, Bailey's grandmother, with her and together they got the news that Bailey had leukemia.
"It was the beginning of a long battle," Kim said.
Bailey endured two years and two months of chemotherapy, losing her hair in February 1992. She has only vague memories of the ordeal.
She remembers getting to choose a toy from a red toy box after painful shots. She recalls wearing a Daisy Duck hat, and having her mom sneak her brand-new Beagle puppy, Chili Dog, into the hospital to see her.
Bailey Stenson won the battle. She was considered cured in November 1996, five years after she went in remission. She has yearly checkups to make sure the disease has not returned, but Bailey doesn't stress about it, even though she is at higher risk of getting other cancers than someone who has never had leukemia.
"I don't think about it at all," she said. "It doesn't eat at me every day, or anything like that. It's cool. I'm all better."
Catch me if you can.
Sandy Ringer: 206-718-1512 or sringer@seattletimes.com
