On the Yankees beat

Hearing Andy Phillips describe his wife's fight with cancer over the last six months was rather gut wrenching and heart breaking, and then equally as motivating and encouraging, maybe more so. His eyes filled up with tears at times, while other times he spoke rather proudly about his wife's courage and strength, and then smiled.

It has been some emotional trip they've been on for six months, and it's finally getting back to somewhat being normal. Andy's wife, Bethany, was told she's cancer-free last month (she had a rare form of cancer resulting from a molar pregnancy), and she just had her final chemotherapy treatment last week. They're happy, and relieved.

She's here in Washington D.C. on her first trip of the season, and will be in Philly to be with her husband. She's still tired, Andy says, and will be for "several, several months," but they'll take that. She's healthy, and that's what matters most.

As for baseball, Phillips won't put his slow start on what was going on in his life, but it's easy to see the correlation in his numbers. He was 4-for-29 as his wife fought cancer with chemo into May, and 24-for-77 ever since they were told she's cancer-free. You could sense the pain in his voice as he described returning to an empty apartment in the city or an empty hotel room every night, worried about his wife.

"There's a fine line between providing for your wife and providing for your family, and then being there emotionally for her," Phillips said. "Finding that balance was the toughest thing to figure it out."

Andy went home to Alabama every off day, and he even didn't sleep one night to catch a 6 a.m. outbound flight. It was the off day following a night game in Boston in late May, and the Yankees didn't get back to New York until around 2. He returned to his apartment, showered, and then right back to the airport to catch a 6 a.m. flight. The next morning, he caught another 6 a.m. flight back to New York.

Early on Andy didn't know whether he could handle being away. He described a game in Toronto when he had tears in his eyes on the field all game, so much so he barely remembers what happened on the field during the game. But when he went home questioning where he should be, his wife convinced him to return to the Yankees.

"She told me, 'If it weren’t for what you do, we wouldn’t be able to take care of this, and you’re where you’re supposed to be,'" Andy said. "Also knowing our family was there to take care of her, our church family also was there to take care of her, all of those things gave me the peace to get back on that plane to get back without saying anything. Up to that point I didn’t know."