Player’s fight with cancer inspires Owls

There might be perfect days in the life of Micah Pi.

Skiing in Colorado or Canada. The powdery snow near Nagano, Japan. Surfing at Half Point.

Right now, Mid-Pacific’s starting right fielder simply wants to do the little things to help his team. The Owls are in possession of first place in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu baseball standings at 9-2.

“I knew our senior year was going to be a special one,” said Pi, a senior who is batting .370 with a .452 on-base percentage. “We’re all super close, and we work really hard. We don’t really mess around with other stuff.”

Shion Matsushita has been outstanding on the mound with his funky sidearm delivery. Pepperdine-bound Wyatt Young has been resilient with a nonstop work ethic.

“He loves baseball. When I think of baseball,” Pi said, “I think of Wyatt. I’m not even kidding.”

The reps in the cage and the weight room are constant and valuable.

“Their games have matured,” coach Dunn Muramaru said of seniors like Pi and Young. “They do smart things. Because their hitting skills have improved — hitting curve balls, going with the pitch, using the entire field — they can do stuff like moving runners over, situation hitting.”

Pi, who grew up playing baseball and soccer, has been as far away as Europe.

“I went to Germany and Denmark. There’s lots of tall people. It’s really fun. The food was really good, essentially a lot of potatoes, bread and meat,” said Pi, who has a 3.7 grade-point average. “I miss soccer a little bit. I didn’t have to pick one sport, but Mid-Pacific baseball is pretty serious.”

The Owls went to an American Legion tournament on the mainland in the summer of 2017. They returned home for the start of the school year. Then came a team party. Pi wasn’t well.

“I started feeling it the day before. My back was really sore. I couldn’t sleep. I thought I tore a muscle surfing,” he recalled.

He was in the hospital the day after the party, diagnosed with lymphoma. Doctors located a tumor the size of a softball in his torso.

“I wasn’t really freaking out or anything. I was pretty chill about it,” he said.

His father, Mike, is an anesthesiologist, and his mother, Stacy, is a pharmacist. Kessi, his twin sister, also gave him major support.

“They were calm and pretty much have been there for me. I think that consistency gave me reassurance, that everything’s going to be OK and normal,” Pi said.

The spark that lifted his spirits often came from daily visits.

“My girlfriend (Olivia Collis) and friends tried to visit me every day. That was the best part of my day,” Pi said. “Locked in my room, being lonely. Not much to do. Having them come after school or after practice, that’s the greatest thing to look forward to.”

Even Young, who met Pi on the first day of sixth grade at MPI, took some rare breaks from his schedule.

“He likes spicy ahi, so we’d bring it sometimes,” Young said. “He didn’t really show any emotion. He was tired from the chemo. But you couldn’t see sadness from him. He was pretty persistent throughout the process.”

Within one week of his final chemotherapy treatment in December, Pi was on the practice field.

“He came back and had a hard time running two laps,” Muramaru said. “That’s courage.”

Pi just wanted to be a real part of a team that he calls his “family.”

“I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to play. The whole coming back thing, it was difficult. But with the people I met at the hospital, I had it a lot better than the kids,” he said. “The chemo kills cells, so my coordination and reaction time weren’t that great. The first time hitting a baseball, it was like the pitches were 100 mph and the bats were so heavy.”

Still, he wanted nothing to do with special treatment.

“I didn’t want people looking at me differently. I honestly don’t care. I just want to be seen the same way as anybody else,” Pi said.

The team wore bright neon green jerseys last Thursday in a 6-0 win over ‘Iolani, celebrating senior day with the color of lymphoma awareness. It was the first time since 1987 — Muramaru’s first season as head coach — that the Owls did not wear their traditional gray uniforms. The “pi” symbol donned the left sleeve of every jersey. He never wanted to be a hero or role model, but Pi provides quiet courage, enormous hope and inspiration to kids who face the same situation.

“I think you’ve just got to be patient and the only way to get through it is to get through it. There’s no shortcuts. When it’s done, it’s all worth it,” said Pi, who plans to major in biology at UC Santa Cruz.

Dr. Pi — dentist or orthodontist — would certainly have a nice ring to it.

“You definitely see life in a different way. Being outside and doing the things you want, you appreciate the little things.”