When brain cancer struck a baseball family, a ‘wonderful’ village sheltered them

Ten months ago when the nights were longest, Ned Rice emailed total strangers to share his family’s unthinkable dilemma. These were doctors across the country who had not met and did not treat his 3-year-old daughter. Wynnie had brain cancer. This was how Rice, a Phillies assistant general manager, coped.

He had to gather as much information as he could.

“I have still to this day never googled medulloblastoma,” said Cary Rice, his wife. “Because I can’t handle it. And I’m an analytical thinker, too. But if it’s too emotional, I can’t do it.”

Everything about this felt impossible. Wynnie had lost her balance a few times — and now her parents faced a sudden and critical decision. Doctors at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) told the Rices they could not treat Wynnie with radiation; she was too young. The neurocognitive damage from radiation would prevent her from having an independent adult life. But her chances of survival were better with radiation.

Ned Rice sought a second opinion from another leading children’s hospital. They told him it would be reckless not to use the treatment known to be the best — radiation — no matter the long-term effects. Rice had negotiated player contracts worth hundreds of millions — a high-stakes process that blends objective valuations with a subjective hand. But this was so different.

It was a parent’s worst nightmare.

Then Rice saw an email. A neuro-oncologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital named Richard Graham sent a lengthy reply to one of Rice’s cold calls. “I was really panicking,” Rice said. “He doesn’t even know who I am. He has his own patients and his own life.” Graham shared his advice. He became a frequent resource for Rice.

These small, thoughtful moments accumulated.

An unexpected gift at the doorstep. A video from Wynnie’s classmates. More responses from out-of-town doctors who would never meet Wynnie. Family members and friends who dropped everything to care for her two siblings. More gifts. Nurses who did not just look after Wynnie — but her parents, too.

“It hits you over and over again,” Rice said. “There’s so many people that want to help. Everybody does it in their own way.”

Rice called his former boss. These weren’t like the late-night talks Matt Klentak and he often had while they ran baseball operations for the Phillies. But it felt normal, even though Klentak worked for the Milwaukee Brewers and Rice was on leave from the Phillies.

The phone calls were cathartic. They could dive right into whatever was on Rice’s mind because Klentak knew the latest on Wynnie through an Instagram account the Rices created to chronicle her fight against cancer. It’s grown to more than 700 followers. Friends of friends of friends now reply to posts with, “Go Wynnie go!” The account is a raw look into life with pediatric cancer. It’s become a way for Ned and Cary to express complicated feelings.

More than anything, it’s opened a door. “Caregiver burnout is a common phenomenon,” said Jane Minturn, Wynnie’s neuro-oncologist at CHOP, “and (Ned and Cary) have worked together to limit this.” Wynnie knows she is sick, but she does not understand what brain cancer is. The burden is shared by everyone around her.

It is immense. Klentak could sense it, at times, during those late-night conversations. It is isolating. But Rice started to carry the goodness of those who had entered Wynnie’s universe.

“I couldn’t really relate to what he was going through,” Klentak said. “And I think very few people could. But that doesn’t stop people from wanting to help.”

The first sign of distress wasn’t alarming. Wynnie was a happy and healthy 3-year-old learning to move faster. That meant an occasional stumble. But Ned and Cary noticed their daughter’s balance wasn’t improving; it looked a fraction worse every week. They scheduled an appointment last December with their pediatrician.

He threw cotton balls across the room to Wynnie, who was content to play the game. She had to bend over and fetch them. She wobbled. The pediatrician agreed something seemed off. He wanted her to see a neurologist at CHOP. The next appointment wasn’t for five months. He suggested the Rices go to the CHOP emergency room — not because it was urgent, but to assuage any immediate concerns.

They took Wynnie on Dec. 21, 2023.

“Sure enough,” Rice said,” we had five neurologists in our room in a few minutes.”

Wynnie didn’t have any other symptoms. The doctors scheduled an MRI in three weeks. It could be a muscular disease. Maybe it was vertigo. The Rices visited family for Christmas and Wynnie vomited twice. CHOP rescheduled the MRI for Dec. 29 and, that morning, Wynnie threw up again. She stumbled a few more times.

A doctor summoned Ned and Cary during the MRI. He pointed to a screen. There was a large tumor in Wynnie’s brain. Wynnie was sedated for the MRI. The doctors wanted to do immediate surgery to remove the tumor. It was 4 p.m. on the Friday of a holiday weekend. The procedure lasted four hours; it would take a week to know whether the tumor was cancerous.

Everything had spiraled so fast.

“It’s a long process, but that was definitely a low point,” Rice said. “Those first few days — you took a mostly happy, healthy, sweet girl in for an outpatient MRI. She wakes up and you’re just like, ‘Will we ever see that girl again?’ That was really hard.”

Then Wynnie was diagnosed with medulloblastoma.

Cary lies with Wynnie in the CHOP ICU four days after her brain surgery. Wynnie still could not move or talk. (Courtesy of the Rice family)

During that first trip to the E.R., before everything escalated, Rice was on the phone with Dave Dombrowski. Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s camp had instructed teams to make their last and best offers for the star free agent. Dombrowski communicated the number to Rice, who relayed it to Joel Wolfe, Yamamoto’s agent. Yamamoto signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers that night.

Rice did not mention where he was.

The day Wynnie underwent surgery, Rice called Phillies general manager Sam Fuld. He told him what was happening. Dombrowski was out of the country for a rare vacation; Rice talked to the Phillies’ president of baseball operations soon after New Year’s.

“We’ll see you when it’s over,” Dombrowski told him. “Take everything you need. We’ll completely cover it. Don’t worry about anything.”

John Middleton called a few hours later. The Phillies’ principal owner offered to connect the family with doctors. Cary is a lawyer and her firm, Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller, told her to take as much time as she needed. The Rices were fortunate; they had the means to pay for treatment and ample time to direct attention toward Wynnie. Acquaintances offered to help with whatever the family needed, but what they needed was a cure for cancer.

All they wanted was normal. It was an uncomfortable situation that didn’t always have to be uncomfortable.

“We just have this wonderful sort of village that kept showing up,” Cary said. “Kept calling. Kept texting. Even when I couldn’t respond. We’re just really grateful for that because we are still the same people. We still want to talk about things and do things that have nothing to do with cancer. We want to feel normal. We want to have hope for a normal future. The worst thing you can do or say is nothing.”

Wynnie sits on a bed at CHOP between cycles of her treatment. (Courtesy of the Rice family)

Wynnie lived on the third floor at CHOP for almost eight months. The Rices opted against radiation. But her treatment — alternating cycles of chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplants — was so grueling that most of it was inpatient. Ned and Cary would take 24-hour shifts with Wynnie. They were ships passing in the night without much interaction.

They found a community inside the hospital.

“These nurses, I mean, they’re not just nurses,” Cary said. “They’re therapists. They’re friends. They’re cheerleaders.”

Heidi Turner, one of Wynnie’s nurses, worked only overnights. That meant a lot of late-night bonding. Wynnie was discharged Aug. 23. The last night at CHOP, Turner handed Cary a letter to Wynnie.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” Cary said to Turner. “We’ll stop by and hopefully I’ll see you.”

She stared at Cary. The nurse replied she hoped to never see them again.

“And,” Cary said, “it just stuck with me because it’s such a weird feeling to have.”

Rice, who has been with the Phillies since 2016, stayed in contact with player agents and rival team executives last offseason but no longer served as the team’s main point of contact. The Phillies had started negotiating Zack Wheeler’s three-year, $126 million extension with B.B. Abbott, Wheeler’s agent at Wasserman. By January, Rice and Abbott had regular talks that started with 30 minutes about Wynnie and progressed to Wheeler’s contract.

“You’re never what you want to be for these families that are trying to talk about this,” Abbott said. “Because you just can’t be. It’s so all-consuming when you think, ‘My 3-year-old daughter has to go through this.’ It’s hard for parents and families to get their heads around exactly what’s getting ready to happen. The days and nights and hospitals. Watching their little girl lose her hair and be sick. All of this stuff that I knew was getting ready to come.”

For years, Abbott has raised awareness for pediatric cancer research through the Rally Foundation and the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation. “I just wanted to be more of a sounding board for him,” Abbott said. The Rices weren’t keeping Wynnie’s illness hidden; it was more of an open secret. Abbott decided to help subtly.

He asked Wheeler if he’d lend his name to a fundraiser for the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation near the end of spring training at the Phillies’ complex in Clearwater, Fla. Everyone knew it was for Wynnie, but no one had to say it. Word spread to the team’s front office and support staff. Dozens of Phillies employees had their heads shaved or orange streaks painted in their hair. Players made donations to the foundation.

Reliever Matt Strahm’s wife, Megan, organized a present from the Phillies’ wives and girlfriends. “An unbelievable, huge, outrageous gift wagon for Wynnie,” Rice said. He had not met Strahm’s wife until later that summer at the team’s family day.

“You’re amazing,” Rice said to her.

With Wynnie in the hospital, Rice watched from afar this year as the Phillies sprinted to first place. “The Banatic!” Wynnie said to her dad whenever the furry green mascot appeared on the screen. There are certain rhythms to the baseball season. It is monotonous but contains specific checkpoints. The Rices had none of that with Wynnie. There were no regular updates on her prognosis. They will not know how successful her treatments were until a scan sometime in December.

Their focus was singular. Get through today.

“Wynnie, she’s something,” Cary said. “She has this tiny little voice and she’s so sweet and gentle with everything she does. We always kind of considered her this little delicate flower. But she’s a beast.”

Wynnie at her 4th birthday party. (Ashley Blair Photography)

Two weeks ago, Wynnie had a birthday party. The Rices held it outdoors, at a playground by the Schuylkill River Park, because Wynnie’s immune system remains at risk. They had bagels and coffee and a face painter. Cary handed every kid a stuffed fox as a party favor. “Mr. Fox” was Wynnie’s constant companion in the hospital; Cary had so many at the house because people kept sending them when Wynnie would throw up on hers.

This was a celebration of Wynnie and the village that formed around her.

“We were surrounded,” Cary said, “by about 85 of the friends who have been there for us in so many different ways this year.”

Wynnie’s hair has started to grow back, although she wore a purple knit cap that covered her head at her party. Everyone could see the three purple flowers painted on her forehead.

But Wynnie felt sick near the end of the party. She went to the emergency room with croup. Another challenge. But she was 4 and she was here.

She wore her face paint to the E.R.

(Top image: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic. Photos: Ashley Blair Photography)