Rick Sutcliffe: a winner on and off the mound: former Rookie of the year, Cy Young winner and All-Star spreads a positive influence as he endures a bout with cancer

RICK SUTCLIFFE STOOD ON THE fine green grass outside his Lee's Summit home in Missouri, smiling and waving and looking stronger than he should.

When he commanded a major league pitcher's mound, they called him the Red Baron. Now his red hair had faded, but the 6-foot-7 physique that made him a three-time All-Star still remained.

"Hi, hi," he said. "Come on in. Welcome."

Sutcliffe turned and headed toward the door, into a beautiful house of crosses and high-vaulted ceilings and views of a winding lake.

The 51-year-old moved over a granite entryway and onto hardwood floors that led to the kitchen, where he introduced his wife and high school sweetheart, Robin. Then he walked onto a back porch and took a seat.

The wind blew so hard the warm weather felt cold and nasty, but for the moment this is where the kid from Kansas City. wanted to begin his story.

"My parents were divorced right before my freshman year in high school." he said. "My grandpa took me to every one of my Little League games and practices. All the sports, he was the guy involved. My parents were always gone."

It had been a long, interesting journey that had carried him to both coasts and the biggest city in between.

But it's one that's always been rooted in Kansas City. The friends he'd made, the woman he'd married, the daughter he'd raised, the career he'd had and, now, the cancer he was fighting--everything started and ended with his hometown.

"This is my place," he said.

Sutcliffe started to explain more when his phone started ringing.

It was Bill Murray. He had just landed at Kansas City International Airport and wanted Sutcliffe to stop what he was doing and hang out.

And Bill Murray--Bill Murray!--was told, No, no, I can't now. I've got a story to tell.

The other parents whispered warnings to their nine and 10-year-old children: Don't play with Rick Sutcliffe.

The kid from Independence, Missouri would walk onto the field for baseball practice, and the only person brave enough to stand at the receiving end of a child's fastball was the nearest adult.

"I remember grandpa saying I had to play with the coach because they didn't want their kids to get hurt," Sutcliffe said. "I didn't know what that was all about."

How could he? Baseball wasn't Sutcliffe's first love, maybe not even his second. He lived for football and excelled at everything--golf, pool, basketball. Name a game and he'd probably dominate.

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"He was All-American everything," said childhood friend Robert "Meat" Taylor.

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Sutcliffe spent much of his time at his grandpa's home near what is now the Truman Sports Complex, using knives to cut bike trails, building tree forts and running around with other kids through the foliage until cops ran them off and a ballpark grew out of their playground. His grandpa is 97 and still lives in the same house.

And then there were the sports.

He was the guy everyone wanted to be--the quarterback, the basketball star and a baseball player on the side at Van Horn High. He was quick to laugh and easy to like.

It was hard to know things weren't quite as good at home. It's hard to know, even today, because Sutcliffe swears by this rule: Stay positive. Talking about his childhood in detail doesn't fit into that philosophy.

"My parents didn't have money. My grandparents raised me," he said. "My grandpa was a carpenter. He'd basically retired until us three kids were kind of dumped on him, and he had to go back to work."

So there was grandpa and grandma, and sports.

"For me, my sophomore year, if somebody told me I could only play one sport I'd have played football," he said. "To be honest with you, I probably would have played some college ball, but that probably would have been it."

Instead, on the day of the baseball draft in 1974, Sutcliffe headed to an older woman's home to mow the lawn.

"She comes running out yelling," he said. "I thought something was wrong. She said, 'Your grandma just called and you got drafted in the first round by the Dodgers!'"

"I'm like, 'Come on.' Maybe the Dodgers. But not the first round."

Sutcliffe's rise was as fast as it was spectacular.

He breezed through the minors and was called up to the majors briefly in 1976 and 1978. He hit the big leagues for good in 1979 at 22 and proceeded to go 17-10 with a 3.46 ERA for the Dodgers, good enough to take home the N.L. Rookie of the Year Award.

He was traded to the Indians before the 1982 season and the Cubs in 1984. That season, Sutcliffe went 16-1 with the Cubs, leading them to their first postseason since 1945 and winning the N.L. Cy Young Award.

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He became an instant celebrity in Chicago, loved and cheered and hounded for autographs. After the '84 season, as a flee agent, he could have played anywhere.

There were the Yankees: "Steinbrenner called, and he said, 'I don't finish second,'" Sutcliffe said. "'Get the best offer you got and I'll pay you more and I'll add more years to your contract.'"