Relieved reliever Mets' DiPoto gets win over cancer By JOHN GIANNONE Daily News Sports Writer FORT LAUDERDALE In baseball, spring represents a time for hope. It signifies the end of the winter chill and the hint of summer's lazy, hazy days. For the first time in three springs, Met reliever Jerry DiPoto feels all that hope, excitement, optimism and warmth. For the first time in three springs, balls and strikes have replaced life and death. *I come to the ballpark and it's fan again, DiPoto said yesterday, a huge smile crossing his face. "Last year wasn't a lot of fun. It was the first time in my life I was moody. I couldn't jerk up the energy to be there. Now, I remember how much fun it is to play baseball." DiPoto learned some painful lessons about mortality the last two springs. In 1993. DiPoto then a promising righthander with the Indians - lost a friend, teammate and bullpen mentor when fellow reliever Steve Olin was killed in a boating accident. Then last year, one year to the day of Olin's and Tim Crews' deaths, Jerry DiPoto was undergoing surgery to remove a cancerous thyroid. The illness sapped all his strength and most of his desire and led to a dreadful 1994. "The thing that scared me more than anything else was the idea of my (two) children growing up without their father," said DiPoto, a native of Jersey City. That was the worst thing about Steve dying in 1993. It wasn't that he went somewhere else. It was that his newborn twins would never know their father. He was a fantastic guy." DiPoto's ultimate personal fear was eased last March when the thyroid was removed. Now he smiles through the memory of it all, as he did yesterday during an unfortunate slip of the tongue. *That thing just killed me last year well, it didn't kill me, but it was a wasted year," DiPoto said. "I was 30 pounds overweight. It was like I was carrying an extra person with me. I was different. I found it very difficult to get up and go to the ballpark, mueh less do what I had to do when I got there. *Eventually I took everything in stride, I mean, if I had a brain tumor, maybe it would've been more frightening. But as the doctors said, if you're going to get cancer, the kind I had was the one to get. Even though last year was a waste, it's better to lose one year now than 30 later on. DiPoto, 26, must take medication the rest of his life to simulate the role of the thyroid, which is to provide the metabolism that controls bodily growth. But Fadiation treatments, rapid* weight gain, fatigue and frustrationare over. the 10 fading horizontA sear where the neck meets torso is the only visible remnant of the spring of 1994. ee.esti With the addition of Jerry DiPoto, Dave Mticki, Doug Henry and Blas Minor, the Mets are looking to improve on what was a terribly ineffective relief corps last year. Here is a look at the eight Mets no longer with the team who pitched in middle relief in 1994: NAME IP HITS WALKS ER Roger Mason 51⅓ 44 20 20 Mike Maddux 44 45 13 25 Doug Linton 35⅓ 49 14 17 Mauro Gozzo 24% 37 12 12 Frank Seminara 12 15 4 7 Jonathan Hurst. 10 15 5 14 Dave Telgheder 10 2. 11 8 8 Eric Hillman 5% 8 5 6 TOTALS 193 224 81 109 NOTE: ERA of eight-man group was 5.08. Middle-relief holdovers are RHP Josias Manzanillo and LHPs Eric Gunderson and Mike Remlinger. Includting that trio, ERA of all Met setup men was 4.43. "It looks like I had a little grapple with a strangler," DiPoto kidded. "It's much better now. After the surgery Lhad that Herman Munster staple look" DiPoto, acquired in November in a deal involving Jeromy Burnitz can only hope to duplicate his performance from 1993 when he posted 11 saves and a 2.40 ERA in 47 games for the Tribe. "I think his body is still trying to adjust and he's still trying to get over everything that happened," pitching coach Greg Pavlick said. "Mentally and physically, something like that can be a big detriment to the way you pitch and your consistency. I'm not saying it was with Jerry, but it sure could be." "I'll say this: I didn't put the thyroid thing behind me until December after I got a clean bill of health and lost 35 pounds," DiPoto said. "Now I feel this thing really is in the past." Met musings: Brett Butler, who turns 38 in June, insists he'd like to play "at least until I'm 40, as long as I stay productive." But Butler's days as union representative are over no matter how long his career lasts. "It was a learning experience for me," he said. "(But) I'm a ballplayer, not a negotiator. The players on the negotiating committee were looked upon in a negative realm because of what they were trying to accomplish, which was positive." Did Butler believe his high profile during strike hurt him in free-agent market? "I only know the Dodgers offered me $3½ million in January and I told them I'd sign when the freeze was over," he said. "Then they told me the offer was no longer on the table because of the imple, work rules. When the strike ended I asked GM) Fred Claire if there was any way I would play for the Dodgers. He said no."