Q&A: Banister talks about his approach to life

Jeff Banister never let challenges get in his way. From being diagnosed with cancer in his left leg and suffering a torn up knee during his high school career to breaking his neck in junior college and then spending 29 years in pro ball waiting and wondering if he’d ever get a chance to be a big league manager.

The opportunity finally came. A man with one Major League at-bat and one hit — he beat out a ground ball to short — was given a chance a season ago to manage the Texas Rangers, taking over for the player favorite Ron Washington.

The Rangers last season were a mirror of Banister’s life. It was a struggle early on, but the team didn’t give up. Texas won the American League West.

Banister discusses his approach to life in this week’s Q&A.

MLB.com: To go through everything you’ve gone through, in terms of time spent in the game as well as the physical challenges of your youth, did you start to wonder if you’d ever get the chance to be a big league manager?

Banister: Internally, to be honest with you, there was a point where I came to the conclusion that it might not happen. Still, in the back of … my mind, deep, dark crevices, the dream was still there. I felt I had the skill set — and I obviously had the desire.

MLB.com: But then I guess you always have believed you could accomplish things, even when others doubted. Like being told your sophomore year in high school you had cancer in your left leg.

Banister: I’d been in that hospital bed, in that same room, for so long that I’d kind of developed the ability in my brain to compartmentalize the fear aspect of it all. I got tired of being scared. I got tired of seeing fear in everybody else’s faces. I got tired of seeing the sadness. The only thing that I could really hang on to is that word, “No.” No you’re not [going to amputate], because I’m going to be in control of this. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know even if I could be, but I’m lying in a hospital bed, in a gown, seeing nothing but masks, gloves and aprons, the same four walls, hearing the same sounds every night, every day, fighting that fight. In my own mind, I was putting myself outside that room, out on a baseball field, where I would spend my days. I wasn’t going to let somebody else or let an infection or a disease take that away from me.

MLB.com: Do you live in fear now of a return of the cancer?

Banister: I don’t live in fear because, not long after that, when I was in junior college, I was …

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