Wrigley Field visit 'big thrill' for Sager

Craig Sager's white jacket wasn't the main thing lighting up Wrigley Field on Wednesday.

Sager himself brightened the place up with his presence as he threw out a ceremonial first pitch and got ready to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch.

"I'm doing great," said the popular NBA sideline reporter for TBS and TNT. "How can you not be great? A day like this, Wrigley Field, sunshine, first place? I'm not used to that growing up. I feel great."

If Sager is saying that, few people should be having a bad day. Things haven't been great the last two years for Sager, a 1969 graduate of Batavia High School and a 1973 grad of Northwestern University.

In April 2014, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, and since then he has undergone two bone-marrow transplants, 21 bone-marrow biopsies and more than 20 chemo cycles, one that spanned two weeks for 24 hours a day.

Sager, who turns 65 on June 29, jumped at the chance to throw out a first pitch and sing at Wrigley, where he grew up cheering for the Cubs. He said he bought 31 tickets for family and friends.

"When they called and asked if I wanted to throw out the first pitch, I was thinking, 'That's something not only have I never done, but I hadn't even thought about it,' " he said "It's not even something I had put on a bucket list. I never even thought it would be possible.

"So when they called, I said, 'Heck, yes.' It just happened to work out good because of June 1 and Cancer Awareness Month. It's a very big thrill for me."

Sager, who is known for his flashy suits and sports jackets, got a Cubs jersey from Cubs manager Joe Maddon.

Despite all he has gone through, Sager said he tries to send a message of hope to others fighting illness.

"I just say you've got to keep a positive attitude," he said. "It could be so depressing. Your family has to go through so many hardships. If you sit there and you mope around and you feel sorry for yourself and you bring burdens on to them,

"I always felt that anybody that comes to the hospital with me, I'm going to put on my best face. I'm going to be smiling. I'm going to be laughing. I don't want them to come to that hospital room and when they walk out (say), 'Oh, it's so sad to see Sager like that.' I want them to say, 'You don't even know he's sick.'

"Something that's just positive. There's odds, but we overcome odds every day in what we do in our lives. Just keep fighting. Jimmy V (late college coach Jim Valvano) said, 'Don't give up. Don't ever give up.' I say, 'Don't give up. Don't give in.' "