For Kirk Gibson, his battle widens and urgency grows

BIRMINGHAM, Mich. — He awakens at 4:30 a.m. to start compiling notes on the Tigers’ upcoming opponent. By mid-morning, he’s in the midst of a one-hour workout. By early afternoon, he’s on his way to Lansing for a charity golf outing. Kirk Gibson’s body fights him with every movement, frustrates him every day, slows him but never stops him.

Too much to do; too many ways he can help. It’s not an option; it’s a personal mandate. A cruel irony of having Parkinson’s, at least for Gibson, is that his resolve grows exponentially as his body weakens. His fight now is a decade old, and if you thought he was tired or discouraged, he’ll happily present evidence to the contrary.

He does fewer Tigers telecasts as a concession to the disease, although he’s reluctant to make concessions. Gibson, 66, sounds like a man entering a critical phase of his life, when the next big accomplishments will be among his last, and his most lasting. That’s the twist with Parkinson’s, a progressive brain disorder that affects the nervous system and causes tremors, muscular rigidity and speech alterations. Rather than destroy quickly, as many diseases do, it forces you to live with it, often for quite a while.

So if he’s gonna be around for a while, Gibby’s damn sure gonna make it worthwhile. What he’s learned since being diagnosed in 2015 is how much support a Parkinson’s patient needs, and how difficult it is to find. He has the means to get the medicines and therapies, but many people don’t. So Gibson, World Series champion with the 1984 Tigers and 1988 Dodgers, puts his celebrity to ever-lasting use: to raise awareness and funds, more urgently than ever.

His Kirk Gibson Foundation for Parkinson’s is expanding its mission with the goal of building therapy centers for Parkinson’s patients in southeast Michigan because insurance usually doesn’t cover long-term care. 

“It doesn’t go away,” Gibson said. “It’s a bad situation, and you want to find something uplifting out of it. You really learn what makes you go and who’s there for you and who isn’t. Whether you have Parkinson’s or not, there are times in people’s lives, as they get older, where there’s a deeper thought process. When you’re younger, you don’t have a worry in the world. Then all of a sudden, your first call of duty. Then your second. I don’t know what call I’m on now, but it’s a helluva long-distance one.”

The initial duties were all about sports, from All-American football player at Michigan State, to World Series hero for two teams. It’s fitting that his most famous feats were clutch longshots against the toughest opponents. His home run in 1984 off Padres’ great Gossage clinched the decisive Game 5 for the Tigers. In the 1988 World Series, he limped to the plate and slugged a ninth-inning pinch-hit home run off Oakland great Dennis Eckersley to win Game 1.

One call of duty never changes, with his wife, JoAnn, sons Cam, Kevin and Kirk, and daughter Colleen. Gibson has played in the major leagues, managed in the major leagues, now broadcasts in the major leagues, usually surrounded by family. Cam works for the foundation after a five-year stint as an outfielder in the Tigers’ minor league system.

In Gibson’s Birmingham office, the latest, loudest call is growing. One wall bears the words of his mission — Hope, Inspiration, Help. He sits with Steve Annear, a business consultant and motivational speaker from Australia, and their goal to build therapy centers has advanced well past the dream stage.

There’s no cure for Parkinson’s, and because life expectancy is about the same as a non-afflicted person, treatments can last a long time at enormous cost. The disease often leads to isolation, which can lead to depression. Gibson and Annear are trying to build hope, in the spiritual sense and the bricks-and-mortar sense.

“What we’re learning is that movement helps deal with the symptoms,” Gibson said. “You get diagnosed, they give you some prognosis, you get three to four weeks of paid therapy and after that, you’re on your own. What happens generally is, people go to the therapy and then stay home because they can’t pay for it, or they’re just lazy. So I talk to them and I say, where do you live? I’ll come get you, we can talk. You want to participate, do it. If you don’t, don’t.”

If that sounds blunt, well, he means it to be. No room for self-pity in Gibson’s mission.

“For anybody with Parkinson’s, you just have to get up every day and say, (forget) you,” he continued. “At first, you’re motivated, but we want to have insurance extend and pay for group therapy. We’ve found when you bring everybody together, it’s like a big family, like a team. You see a totally different personality, you see people not worrying about their arm shaking, or that their hand is in their pocket. We’ve looked into these centers, and people walk in, and right away, they smile.”

As a baseball star, Gibson admits he had less time for others, busily carving his career. Looking back, he dislikes the aloof persona he presented. When he sees old tapes of himself, he believes symptoms started creeping in 30-plus years ago. He was diagnosed after he froze up before the Tigers opening day telecast in 2015.

“It’s scary, but then I realized it wasn’t a death sentence,” Gibson said. “I’m still intense, not as intense. It bothers me that I’m not as athletic. I was pretty good at quite a few things. It’s a challenge to accept that it’s not that way anymore.”

He gets quiet. Reflective, but not somber. He’ll still absently stick his hands in his pockets to hide the shaking, his gait can be halting, his voice can fluctuate. He knows people see it and hear it, and he’s not afraid to talk about it, even as he detects the disease’s slow advancement. The point is, if he can handle it, so can those in less public settings.

“There are times the disease kind of creeps through me and I feel lethargic, achy,” Gibson said. “I was running on the treadmill the other day, and my legs just don’t move like they used to, like I’m losing my limbs a little bit. We’re playing golf after I get done here, so I know I gotta slip a couple pills.”

Therapy for Parkinson’s starts with actual movement, exercise and interaction. It was a painful adjustment for Gibson, but he likes who he has become, even if he hates the mortal restrictions.

“I’ve been somewhat of a private person, socially nervous when people approach me,” Gibson said. “Totally the opposite now. Because I just feel it’s rewarding to know you’re helping people. When you help somebody, they find somebody. That’s my new normal, and I’m gonna continue to try as many things as I can, within reason.”

He means fundraising events. He means personal contact. He means balancing his regular life.

He says his family is basically afflicted with “Parky” by their connection to him.

He also means living by example. He golfs almost daily but had to give up pickleball after knee-replacement surgery last June. He’s in his 14th season over two stints in the Tigers broadcast booth.

But he still has time for fun, like his the Alaskan trip he’s planning this year, the second time he’s headed there.

“We got on an airplane in our waders at 8 a.m. and flew out to the middle of the tundra,” he said of his past trip. “We landed on a little lake, carried our disassembled raft up over the hill and slid down on our asses. Then we reconstructed it and floated in the river with the bears, and fished all day.”

When he meets people newly diagnosed, these are the stories he tells. That so many things are still possible, but there’s no clear path, and no path at all if you don’t try to carve one.

“I can only tell them what I did and why,” he said. “I can make some suggestions what they could do, this, this or this. Or you can do nothing. It’s your choice.”