Hendriks is Roberto Clemente Award nominee for sixth time
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This story was excerpted from Ian Browne’s Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
BOSTON -- When righty reliever Liam Hendriks was completing his free-agent contract with the Red Sox during Spring Training, he made an unusual request for a player who was going to be rehabbing from Tommy John surgery for most of the season.
Hendriks let it be known that he wanted to be around the team at home and on the road for most of the time rather than rehabbing in Fort Myers, Fla. This wasn’t so he could explore all the fine eateries in Boston or hit his favorite haunts around the country.
It was so he could meet regularly with children battling cancer. For Hendriks, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in December 2022 while with the White Sox and came back to pitch on May 29, 2023, this was vitally important.
Hendriks still hasn’t thrown a pitch in the Majors this season and might not until next season due to recent tightness he’s experienced in the latter stages of his comeback from Tommy John surgery.
But he’s managed to make a big enough contribution as a human being that the Red Sox made him their nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award.
This is the sixth time Hendriks has been nominated for MLB’s most prestigious humanitarian award.
“It’s a huge honor, and I think this, as far as the awards go, this is the top one,” he said. “This is above anything else because this doesn’t require talent. It just requires effort, and that's something that everyone can do and everyone has an opportunity to do."
If not being able to pitch has been a bitter disappointment for one of the game’s fiercest competitors, Hendriks has been able to channel his energy in a meaningful way.
“I was able to meet people on the road. We did one visit [with cancer patients] on pretty much every road series I went on this season,” Hendriks said. “We’ve done a couple a homestand generally as well. So there's been a lot of families that we've been able to talk to. It's purely selfish from my point of view, because I get a lot from it as well.
“It's nice being able to talk about what I went through as far as the cancer diagnosis and treatment, and now look on the other side, survivorship, which has been a lot harder than I think anybody expects it to be. So being able to talk to people who are going through it, or have gone through it, or are about to go through it, has been beneficial to me. But I also know that the more you talk about it, the better it is. And so hopefully I can change a couple of people's perspectives on the way of what they're going through or what they're about to.”
While it isn’t uncommon for someone to gain perspective after a cancer diagnosis – particularly an athlete in his or her prime – the truth is that Hendriks was civic-minded long before that, as evidenced by his previous nominations. Playing in MLB has given him the perfect platform for his off-field deeds.
The causes that Hendriks has promoted over the years have been diverse. And his wife Kristi has been with him every step of the way, which is why he talks about Clemente Award nominations in terms of “we” instead of “me.”
“Every single time we've been nominated, we've chosen a different group that the grant money that you get from being a nominee goes towards,” said Hendriks. “It definitely kind of spearheaded looking towards cancer research this time. But we've done a different group every time, whether it be military, whether it be LGBTQ-based, whether it be animal rights, animal rescue.
“This year has definitely given me a pointed approach about what we're doing, but we still haven't stopped doing any of our other stuff. We're still advocating for anything we can and everything we believe in.”
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Being linked with Clemente is something that will never get old for Hendriks.
“You obviously know him as a player, you know what he was able to accomplish, but seeing what he did, and even the unfortunate circumstances of his passing, he was on a plane to get food and water for people in need,” said Hendriks. “It's a tribute to what he was doing that he's now got an entire day, an entire award dedicated in his name for everything he did.”