What Eric Davis's Story Can Teach Us About Colon Cancer

What the 1997 season actually looked like

The Society for American Baseball Research has documented the timeline. Eric Davis, then an outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles, was diagnosed with colon cancer in late May 1997, in his mid-thirties. Doctors found a tumor in his colon roughly the size of a baseball. On June 13 surgeons removed it, along with one-third of his colon.

Weekly chemotherapy started on July 16. On September 15, five days after a chemotherapy session, Davis returned to the Orioles lineup and played right field against Cleveland. He finished his course of chemotherapy on February 11, 1998.

Those are the public facts. His private medical decisions were his, and nothing here should be read as a template for anyone else. The reason this story is still worth telling is a change in the disease itself.

"Too young for colon cancer" stopped being true

Colorectal cancer used to be filed mentally as an older person's disease. The National Cancer Institute has been saying otherwise for years.

In a 2020 report, NCI noted that the rate of colorectal cancer has been rising steadily among adults younger than 50 since the 1990s, and that nearly 18,000 people under 50 would be diagnosed with it that year in the United States. Researchers quoted by NCI point to several possible drivers. One is diet, in particular a lot of processed meat and fat and little fruit and vegetables. Others are obesity and inactivity, and shifts in gut bacteria and inflammation. No single cause has been pinned down.

NCI also described why this matters practically. It featured a man who ignored blood in his stool because it happened only occasionally and did not hurt. His cancer was found later, at stage 3. The lesson NCI drew was about awareness, not blame: when neither the patient nor the clinician is thinking about colorectal cancer, the question does not get asked.

Signs a younger adult should not file away

There is no version of this list where age is a reason to skip it.

• Blood in the stool, bright red or very dark. Occasional and painless still counts. Hemorrhoids are common and do bleed, but a person can have hemorrhoids and a tumor at once.
• A change in bowel habits that has lasted more than a few weeks: diarrhea, constipation, or stools that have become narrow.
• Abdominal discomfort, cramping, or bloating that keeps returning without an obvious cause.
• Weight loss you did not intend.
• Fatigue that is out of proportion to your life, especially alongside any bleeding. Slow blood loss drains iron before it looks dramatic.
• Vomiting, or a sense that the bowel is not emptying properly.

Two extra facts change the threshold. If a parent, sibling, or child has had colorectal cancer, say so out loud at the appointment. NCI also lists inherited conditions such as Lynch syndrome and familial adenomatous polyposis. Inflammatory bowel disease lasting eight years or more counts too.

Where screening starts now

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation, issued May 18, 2021, grades routine screening a B for adults aged 45 to 49 and an A for adults aged 50 to 75. Selective screening for ages 76 to 85 is a C.

Several tests qualify. A fecal immunochemical test, or FIT, every year. Stool DNA-FIT every one to three years. CT colonography every five years. Flexible sigmoidoscopy every five years, or every ten years with an annual FIT. Colonoscopy every ten years.

Screening applies to people without symptoms. If you have symptoms, you are not in the screening conversation. You are in the diagnostic one, and it should move faster.

What the surgery removes, and what the pathology says

NCI states that surgery is the primary treatment for colon cancer and produces cure in approximately 50% of patients. The operation takes out the segment of bowel holding the tumor. It also takes a margin of healthy tissue on each side, plus the lymph nodes that drain that segment. Removing a third of the colon, as Davis did, is a substantial but well-described operation, and the remaining colon is rejoined.

The lymph nodes are the point. NCI recommends that at least 12 lymph nodes be examined before calling a colon cancer node-negative. That is a checkable number on a pathology report.

Other findings on that report matter too. NCI's clinician guidance says elevated pretreatment carcinoembryonic antigen, or CEA, a protein measured in blood, carries negative prognostic significance. Microsatellite instability, a signature of faulty DNA repair machinery, has been associated with improved survival independent of stage, and it steers drug choice.

Why chemotherapy comes after a "successful" operation

This trips people up. If the tumor is out, why more treatment?

Because surgery removes what can be seen. Adjuvant chemotherapy means chemotherapy given after surgery. It targets cells that may already have traveled but are too few to show on any scan. It is aimed at a risk, not at a visible target. When cancer has reached the lymph nodes, that risk is high enough that chemotherapy is standard.

Courses typically run for months rather than weeks, which is why Davis's treatment stretched from July into the following February. Side effects vary by regimen and person, and many people continue working through parts of it.

What the population numbers show

These are group statistics. They summarize tens of thousands of people and predict nothing about one of them.

For 2026 the American Cancer Society projects 158,850 new colorectal cancers in the United States, about 7.5% of all new cancer cases, and 55,230 deaths; SEER, the federal cancer statistics program, carries those numbers. The Society's 2025 breakdown, reprinted in NCI's PDQ summary for clinicians, was 107,320 colon cancers and 46,950 rectal cancers.

Stage at diagnosis does the heavy lifting. Among people diagnosed in the years 2016 through 2022, SEER reports five-year relative survival of 91.3% for localized colorectal cancer, 75.2% for regional disease that has reached nearby lymph nodes, and 16.9% once it has spread to distant organs. About 34% of cases are found localized. About 23% are already distant.

Why the story lasts

An athlete going back to work between chemotherapy sessions makes a striking image, and it is a true one. But it is not the useful part.

The useful part is that a man in his thirties had a colon tumor. At the time, almost nobody was looking for one in a man that age. The disease has kept moving younger since. The bleeding you decided was nothing is worth one appointment. That is the whole takeaway.

Sources

• NCI: Colorectal Cancer Rising among Young Adults (Cancer Currents, November 5, 2020)
• NCI: Colon Cancer Treatment (PDQ) — Health Professional Version
• NCI: Colon Cancer Treatment (PDQ) — Patient Version
• SEER Cancer Stat Facts: Colorectal Cancer
• USPSTF: Colorectal Cancer Screening, final recommendation, May 18, 2021
• SABR: September 15, 1997 — Eric Davis returns to Orioles lineup between chemotherapy sessions
• American Cancer Society: Cancer Facts & Statistics