Tiago Viernes walked across the MLB Draft stage on Sunday evening to announce the Mariners’ first-round selection, and maybe the 9-year-old will be back here in another decade or so hearing his own name called.
Viernes was invited by the Mariners to take center stage ahead of the organization’s most monumental Draft in recent memory, in huge part, because his story is so inspiring.
Viernes overcame life-threatening Stage 4 neuroblastoma when he was just 2 years old. His family relocated from a town in central Washington about two-and-a-half hours southeast from T-Mobile Park, so that he could get treatment from Seattle Children’s Hospital.
After 18 months of intense treatment that included chemotherapy, surgery, two stem-cell transplants, radiation treatment and immunotherapy, he not only has been cancer free for the past six years, but he’s an active participant in an array of youth sports — including baseball.
