In 1997, while playing for the Baltimore Orioles, 35-year-old Eric Davis discovered he had cancer.

"I was in Cleveland for a game and had to be taken out because I had severe pain in my stomach," says Davis. They thought he might have a hernia, but he seemed fine the next day, so he jetted off to New York to rest up for another game. "I couldn't get out of bed the next day," he says.

Davis underwent a colonoscopy (an examination of the colon with a flexible tube containing a video camera), during which doctors discovered a tumor the size of an orange. That same week surgeons removed the tumor and about a third of his colon.

Colorectal cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths. The American Cancer Society estimates that 153,760 new cases of colorectal cancer will be diagnosed in 2007, and about 52,180 people in the United States will die of this disease. The likelihood of developing colorectal cancer go up as you get older.

With no family history of the disease, Davis, his family and doctors were shocked. "My doctor told me this is usually found in men 50 or 60 years of age," Davis says. After his surgery, Davis had 37 sessions of chemotherapy (scheduled around his games). The idea was to kill off any stray cancer cells that might have escaped the surgeon's knife.

Davis was fortunate in one respect — the cancer didn't appear to have reached his lymph nodes. Once cancer gets into the body's lymph system, the odds of successfully battling the disease decrease tremendously.

Three years later, Davis remains healthy, and his outlook is positive. Now with the St. Louis Cardinals, Davis says, "I feel fantastic. I get screened once a year — they do blood work, a CT [computed tomography] scan and a colonoscopy. Every thing's going good."

He's turned his brush with cancer into a crusade, forming a foundation and trying to get the word out about the disease and how early detection and treatment can save thousands.

"Nobody should die of colon cancer," says Davis. "And nobody should be afraid to be screened. It's a simple test that could mean the difference between living another four months or a long, full life."

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