Diabetic Former Pro Baseball Player. No Legs and No Hall of Fame.

Ron Santo is true icon in baseball. And he has seen some tough times. If nothing else, he knows how to persevere.

If you don’t know him, he has too many records to list. Here are a few. Santo played third base for the Chicago Cubs from 1960 to 1973. During his career, he was a 9-time All Star, won 5 consecutive Golden Glove Awards, and is the only third baseman in history to go 8 straight seasons with 90 runs batted in. In addition he is true team player as evidenced by the fact that from 1966 to 1974 he held the NL record for assists in a single season.

By any measure he should be a Hall-of-Famer. But again this year its not in the cards. "Everybody felt this was my year," Santo told the Chicago Tribune paper on Monday, in his typical gracious manner, even though the years are slipping away.

He is already 68 years old. No spring chicken for a double amputee with diabetes. "To me, two years, because of what I have with the diabetes and [getting] older, it's like eternity," he recently said. He is not alone, because every 30 seconds, another leg is cut off due to diabetes related complications. Statistically, most people who have diabetes are dead within 5 years of having amputations of both legs.

Santos has fought with diabetes for decades, but kept it a secret for most of his career with Cubs. In the late 1960’s he started having trouble. The pro baseball player ended up with the common diabetic sores that led to more than 24 surgeries and partial amputation of both legs. But he still roots for the Cubs from the bench.

"I don't know how he does it; his spirits are always up," said his friend Savelli. "I'm sure he's taking it like a man. Ronnie's a hard-core guy. He has to be to take all he's taken. I'd have been dead a long time ago."

Santos is one of those lemons-from-lemonade types. Whenever he is not working as a member of the Cubs broadcasting team, he is fighting diabetes through community involvement and fundraising. He started the Ron Santo Walk to Cure Diabetes about 30 years ago. Through that effort he has raised $60 million for juvenile diabetes research. He keep high hopes both about a cure for diabetes, as well as his chances for induction into the Hall of Fame.

Personally, I hope he gets both.


Dr. Christopher Segler is an award winning diabetic foot surgeon, author and inventor located in Chattanooga. He is the founder of a groundbreaking private consulting firm that specializes in diabetic amputation prevention. If you or someone you care about has diabetes, you can learn more by simply requesting your FREE report “No Leg Left To Stand On: The Secrets Insurance Companies Don’t Want You To Know About Diabetic Foot Amputation” at http://www.ineedmyfeet.com.