The event was in recognition of the Mariners’ “Steals for the Cure” campaign, an effort sponsored by Premera Blue Cross to raise money for breast cancer organization Susan G. Her younger son, Chase, caught the pitch. Mentink had a chance to show her fans her strength this summer when she threw out the first pitch at the Mariners’ August 17 home game. On the last day or treatment, she and her family boarded a plane for 10 days in Hawaii, “even though I was burnt to a crisp,” Mentink jokes. Treatment for Mentink’s cancer involved the removal of cancerous tissue in her breast and five weeks of high-dose radiation treatment. She watched the game from home, and was warmed by the support she received: Fans in the stands held “#Angiestrong” signs, fellow broadcasters lent their support and the Mariners signed a pink bat for her, which is proudly displayed in her home. To get ahead of any speculation about her health, she Tweeted about her diagnosis before the Mariners played that night. Mentink took a rare night off from work after she received the call from her doctor. That gig eventually morphed into a full-time position with ROOT SPORTS, where she’s worked as a reporter on pre-game shows, served as an anchor on the network’s day and night shows, hosted magazine shows featuring both the Mariners and the Seahawks, and is now one of the faces of the network. Mentink’s foray into broadcasting came while she was still in college in the form of an internship with Prime Sports Network. Her childhood dream eventually came true when she joined the Colorado Silver Bullets, the first women’s professional baseball team since 1954. She was also the first softball player to be inducted into the Husky Hall of Fame. She became the first Husky softball player to earn All-Pac 10 and All-American honors while topping the Pac 10 conference in hits, runs and stolen bases. The University of Washington caught wind of her talent and brought her on as a member of its inaugural women’s softball team in 1993. She was recruited to play softball at Central Arizona College, where she was a two-time All-American and won two NJCAA national championships. “Other kids were petering out,” says Mentink. Because her family moved so often, she never had a chance to play select sports, despite her talent something that ended up working in her favor. As part of a military family, she went to three different high schools, playing softball at each of them. “I cried all night.” ‘You couldn’t drag me off the field’Īs a child, Mentink was an avid baseball fan and dreamed of growing up to become a professional baseball player. “Then I started bawling again,” Mentink says. He calmly told the boys about their mother’s diagnosis, explained that it was caught early, told them to grab their water bottles, then took them to basketball practice. Mentink hesitated to immediately share the news with their children (Jaxen, now 13 and Chase, now 11). “I felt sorry for not being well that I (was) sick and (he was) going to have to deal with it.” Mentink wandered into the kitchen, still dripping wet, and found her husband, Jarrett. Next came the difficult task of telling her family. “It was a shock to the system,” she remembers. Since her breast cancer diagnosis last summer, Angie Mentink has been advocating for early detection. Despite the seriousness of her earlier procedures, she was unprepared for what she would hear. She wrapped herself in a towel, dried off one ear, and scrambled to grab a pen and paper. She’d had a suspicious mammogram a couple weeks earlier, then a follow-up biopsy to take a closer look, and had been awaiting the results. Mentink was in the shower when she received a call from her doctor. A YouTube video that captured the shenanigans has been viewed more than 17,000 times.īut even Mentink couldn’t find the funny one day last September. She was even the focus of a practical joke by players Guillermo Heredia and Danny Valencia, who drenched her with a bucket of purple Gatorade after a Mariners walk-off win last July. Her love of baseball dates back to her childhood, when the self-described Navy brat would spend her free time hitting balls or organizing pick-up games with her five siblings.Īs a member of the ROOT SPORTS broadcast team at Mariners games, she mixes serious reporting with banter during interviews, and frequently finds herself out on the field or in the batting cage with players. “The worst thing in my business is, someone loses,” says Mentink, 45. As a broadcaster covering Mariners baseball for ROOTSPORTS, Angie Mentink likes to keep things lighthearted.
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