‘Baseball became a therapy’

Cam Meyer on his family, his positive attitude, and his love of the sport that carries a deeper meaning for him than most

He went right for it, without any hesitation. It was a play that he knew he could make, and one that he’d made plenty of times before. Never mind that it was Cam Meyer’s first defensive play at Hanover Insurance Park at Fitton Field in 1,073 days, after a UCL injury limited his role during the final weeks of his freshman season, a broken leg sidelined him through his entire sophomore year, and the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered his 2020 junior season before the Crusaders played a single home game. 

The senior shortstop, despite not having played a game on his home dirt since 2018, showed no signs of rust on the first play of the game on March 24, 2021 against UMass. He simply trusted his instincts, dove for a ball that was sharply hit far to his right, caught it, popped up immediately, and threw to first for the out. No nerves, no overthinking — just pure focus.

When Meyer became the starting shortstop in 2021 for the Holy Cross baseball team, it was “like going home,” he said. Though he was able to bring strong defensive prowess as the team’s third baseman to begin his career with the Crusaders — in the words of his head coach Ed Kahovec, Meyer fully embraced becoming “one of the best defensive third basemen in the country” — playing shortstop was a return to his roots, the position he played growing up. At shortstop, there’s always something for Meyer to do, and always an opportunity to be a leader and help everyone else on the field around him. 

Meyer’s approach to baseball has always been defensive-minded. Even though he’s known to hit the occasional home run, and a recent power surge has seen him record a slugging percentage of .842 since April 18, it’s all in the defense and strategy for Meyer. He loves being surrounded by the action, and playing at shortstop lets him immerse himself completely in the game that has been a constant his entire life. 

“When Cam plays baseball, he plays hard, he plays with his heart, and he puts it all out on the field,” said his older sister, Steph. 

“But what many don’t know is that Cam's intensity comes from his life experiences. Baseball is Cam’s form of therapy, and also his escape.”

Even for a game that has been obstacle-filled throughout his playing career, baseball was a cornerstone of Meyer’s childhood. And as a preteen and teenager, it served as a much-needed focus following the deaths of his younger brother, Christian, and his mother, Sheila, after their battles with different rare forms of cancer. To this day, baseball is the sport that carries the memory of Meyer’s late brother and mother, and it’s one in which his mom and brother still appear in so many ways. 

In the Meyer family, according to Steph, “you really can’t escape baseball, no matter how hard you try.” 

Between Meyer's father, a loyal Chicago Cubs fan, and his mother, all in on the Red Sox, you could always find a game on TV in the Meyer household. For a class project, Meyer interviewed his maternal grandfather, a former minor leaguer with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and gave a presentation on how to throw a knuckleball. He grew up playing catch in the backyard with his grandfather and cousins, and began playing the sport in a more formal capacity when he was seven. One of Meyer’s Little League teams was named after the Chicago Cubs, and his aunt, also a die-hard Cubs fan, came to games decked out in Chicago garb  — while also passing out Cubs gear to all of the other families. 

Many of Meyer’s fondest memories of his brother and mother relate directly to baseball. After Christian was diagnosed with an ependymoma brain tumor on his second birthday in September 2002, the Meyer family routinely found comfort and an escape through baseball. Cam’s father, Doug, and Christian received tickets to the 2004 World Series, and after meeting Jason Varitek, Christian took the opportunity to roast the Yankees on the local news. Later, in 2008, Christian got a chance to meet his favorite player, Kevin Youkilis — he loved his funny batting stance — and the Meyer family was able to attend a game at Fenway Park as VIP guests and sit in the dugout during pregame.

Sheila, who in late 2003 was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma, another rare form of cancer that affects smooth muscle tissue, always made sure to attend Cam’s baseball games, even on her toughest days.

“She was becoming frail and needed assistance, but she was a warrior,” Steph said. “In fact, it would almost take her as long to walk down to the field and get settled as it would for most of the game to take place. No matter how much physical pain she was in, our mother was determined to sit behind third base and watch Cam play the game we all loved.

“Watching Cam play the game he loved, and she loved too, brightened her on her weakest days. She always fought through the pain to be there for Cam and cheer him on.”

The family’s experiences together at Fenway Park or at local fields near their home in Newton, Mass., became the deepest roots for Meyer’s love of the game. And more than anything, those memories with his mother and brother are what helped Meyer stick with baseball.

“It was being able to connect to both of them while playing,” he said.

“He was like a miniature version of me, but he was a little bit funnier,” Cam said, when reflecting on his brother, who was just two years younger than he was. 

After a pause and a laugh, he added, “And he was a little bit chubbier, too. That's what I always used to give him crap for, he had bigger cheeks than me.”

Christian always had a cheeky smile on his face — he was constantly in a positive mood and was always ready with a trademark wisecrack, guaranteed to make people laugh. Cam and his brother were best friends, two peas in a pod, and they did everything together. The biggest memory Cam has of ‘Kiki,’ as he was known, is the pair riding bikes around their neighborhood for hours. The two shared bunk beds, walked to school together every single day and went on ice cream runs with their older sister.

“Where there was one brother, there was the other,” said Steph, who is 11 years Cam’s elder.

After Kiki’s cancer diagnosis, Cam stepped in to help and support his younger brother. In the words of his father, Doug, Cam was the “best big brother” — for example, when Kiki had trouble assembling a LEGO set, Cam sat down, read the instructions, and assembled the entire set for him, piece by piece. When Kiki and Cam overlapped in elementary school, Cam would always peek in his classroom to make sure he was okay, lend him a hand walking through the hallway and spend time with him during recess.

“Cam is a natural leader, and a lot of it stems from the help and support he gave Christian while Christian was battling brain cancer,” Steph said. “Cam was there for Christian without hesitation. No matter what time of day, no matter what Christian needed assistance with, Cam was there.”

He simply wanted to be there for his best friend, and though a young Cam didn’t fully understand the extent of what was happening, he remained patient and compassionate, even as Christian’s treatments became more difficult and his mobility became more limited. 

“I don't think I realized the extent of it, or entirely knew what cancer was at the time, but I definitely realized that there was something going on with him,” he said. “When he couldn't walk anymore was when I really started to realize, okay, there's a decline happening here, and I realized that something was happening.”

Christian passed away on October 26, 2008, one month after his eighth birthday. After Christian died, a nearly 11-year-old Cam became more fully aware that his mother, too, had been fighting her own difficult battle.

“Once Kiki had passed, my focus kind of shifted to my mom at that point,” Cam said. “And it was like, ‘Uh oh, are we going to do this again?’

“The first time, I was losing my best friend. Now, I was losing my mom.”

The 15-month span including and following Christian’s death turned into 15 months of hell for the Meyer family. 

Doug was diagnosed with liver cancer in May 2009, and in June 2009, Doug’s mother passed away from pancreatic cancer. The family’s home in Newton constantly had people in and out: priests, relatives and family friends with meals in hand, his mother’s Bible study group. Meanwhile, Sheila’s condition began to worsen; she became strictly bedridden, unable to move, and eventually unable to speak.

Sheila died on January 28, 2010, after more than a six-year battle. She was 51 years old. 

For Cam, the commotion around the time of his mother’s passing was too upsetting, and he didn’t want to be at home. Instead, he turned to baseball. It was a way to get away, a chance to focus on something else.

“After my mom and my brother passed, it was like, okay, you can either stay at home, and you can be involved in everything,” he said, “or you can go to the field. You can go to the cages, and you can take your mind off of it and just go play baseball.

“Baseball became a therapy,” Cam added. “I subconsciously realized that I could continue my mom's life through playing baseball, because I knew how much she loved it.”

Cam’s sister, who was 23 at the time of Sheila’s passing, made a promise to her mother to continue loving and supporting Cam in the same way that their mother had. And more than anything, that meant positively encouraging his love of baseball. 

“Nothing made our mother more proud than seeing her children live out their dreams,” Steph said.

“That was his outlet, being on the ball field with his friends, whether it was the soccer field, the football field or the baseball field, it didn't matter,” said Doug, who is now cancer-free. “That was his outlet, where he could escape and he could be himself.”

After three varsity seasons of baseball at Newton South High School, Meyer transferred to the Salisbury School in Connecticut and played two more years of baseball at the prep school level. He served as a team captain at both Newton South and Salisbury before finding his home playing Division I baseball at Holy Cross. 

Despite Cam’s impressive athleticism — in addition to his baseball prowess, he was a tremendous soccer player through high school — for the Meyer family, his athletic career has never been cutthroat or hyper-competitive. Doug says he’s always loved watching his son play baseball purely for the entertainment value and the fun of the game. And more than anything, he’s proudest of Cam’s constant compassion and dedication to his teammates around him, exemplified by repeated leadership awards throughout his playing career. 

“Those are the kind of things that last forever,” Doug said. “Those are the achievements that last forever, and those are the things that make me more proud than any baseball statistic that he could have ever achieved.”

Meyer’s collegiate baseball career has had plenty of unforgiving moments, to say the least. After a strong start to his freshman season, he partially tore his UCL late in 2018, forcing him to play as the team’s designated hitter — a role that took him out of the field and away from his favorite part of the game. He didn’t throw at all during his sophomore fall and recovered fully from the injury just a couple of months before his sophomore season.

In the final minutes of the Crusaders’ last practice before departing for the team’s opening weekend at Baylor in 2019, Meyer slid on a baserunning drill, and caught his ankle on second base. Just as he had begun to feel ready for a strong sophomore campaign, he quickly realized that a comeback would have to wait even longer. An X-ray showed that he had shattered his fibula, requiring surgery, four months in a cast, then another surgery to remove some of the screws.

Meyer again came back strong post-injury, and began his junior season in 2020 on a tear, with seven doubles and two home runs in 15 games, until COVID-19 put an early end to the NCAA season.

His senior year, impacted by a number of COVID-related restrictions and changes, got off to a slow start offensively — but things began to click in the second half. That surge has made him one of the Patriot League’s most dangerous hitters in recent weeks, and he was recognized as the Patriot League Player of the Week on April 27. 

But more than any on-field accomplishment or memory, Meyer is proudest of how his team has rallied around a cause near to his heart. The Holy Cross baseball team has long worked with Vs. Cancer, a charity that raises funds for pediatric brain tumor research. Since his freshman year, Meyer has raised over $16,000 for Vs. Cancer, and he has been one of the nation’s top individual fundraisers each year. This year, every Holy Cross player was able to raise at least one donation, and as a team, the Crusaders have raised more than $11,000.

Even when faced with obstacles, on the field or off, Meyer has stayed resilient, and his approach has never changed: focus on the positives. 

"Cam defines living life with the glass half-full,” Steph said. “Why? Because at the end of the day, Cam knows firsthand that things can always be worse."

An undeniable leader for this Holy Cross team, Cam doesn’t get hung up on a bad game, a bad at bat, any sort of slump. Things always have the opportunity to get better, and, for him, the point of playing baseball is simply to embrace it and enjoy it.

“His teammates gravitate toward him for advice on the field and off because he has great perspective and a mature outlook on baseball and life,” Kahovec said. “He very much has a team-oriented mindset and has been an awesome teammate. He does all of the little things and never expects others to do things that he isn't willing to do himself.”

And as his career on The Hill draws to a close, Meyer hopes that his teammates have taken a similar mindset to his. 

“If someone said I was able to help them find the fun in the game again, that's really all that matters,” Meyer said. 

“I just hope I could help a guy relearn why he loves baseball — especially because of how much of an impact it's had on my life.”

In so many ways, Meyer’s mother and brother continue to be present in his baseball career. When Meyer arrived at Holy Cross, he had to switch away from the number 9 he wore growing up and choose a different number. The number 8 — worn by his mother’s favorite player, Carl Yastrzemski — was available. Today, Meyer still has eight screws in his leg from his sophomore-year surgery. One of his gloves, which hasn’t quite been broken in, has “6/9/26” stitched in, combining the dates of his mother’s birthday, June 9, and his brother’s birthday, September 26.  

In his family’s first trip back to Cape Cod following his mother’s passing, Meyer bought a cross necklace in Chatham, arguably his mom’s favorite place in the entire world, and he has worn that same necklace for 11 years.

“I know for the past 11 years and counting, our mother is still watching Cam’s every game, every at bat, and every play from heaven,” Steph said. “She was, and still is, Cam’s number one fan.”

A few days before his junior season began in 2020, Meyer contemplated what he would do if he happened to hit a home run. He’d been building up his power over the last couple weeks of practice entering the season opener, and though he hadn’t hit a home run at the collegiate level yet, he knew it was a possibility. And he knew one thing for certain.

“If I had one, I would have to make sure my mom and my brother knew.”

Meyer’s first collegiate home run came just a few days later, on Feb. 15, at the University of South Carolina. Off the bat, he knew it was out of the park. Later, a South Carolina fan would comment that it was the longest home run they’d ever seen hit at that field. 

Hyperbole? Perhaps, but still, it was a no-doubter. Cam rounded the bases, and as he crossed home plate, he made a cross formation across his chest and pointed at the sky — directly to Mom and Kiki. He fully knew that they were watching, and he wanted to share that moment with them.

“I knew that they were helping out somehow,” he said with a smile, “because that ball hit the scoreboard.”

Photo credits: Courtesy of Meyer family, Varsity Vantage Photography, Mark Seliger Photography, John Williamson Photography

Written by Sarah Kirkpatrick