Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 71

BEYOND HOMELESS The support services of Lake View Shelter help (hose in need get back on their feet. See Page 3 'J," Sunday; September 25, 1994 MM INSIDE SECTION 5 Sunday watch ...2 Arts Plus 9 Discoveries 8 Dear Abby ....8 Horoscope 8 Bridge 8 MP Bob Greene The answer is in the photograph When accepted treatments fail, cancer patients often turn to experimental programs, despite risks, questions you're wondering what the photo accompanying today's column is: It's the reason that not one more word needs to be written or spoken about the major-league baseball strike. It's the reason that the owners and the players should simply disappear until they have worked out their paltry and tiresome disagreement. In short, it's the reason that none of them none of the big-league owners, none of the big-league players are necessary. The photograph was found at a garage sale about 10 years ago, by a high school teacher and former high school baseball 1JI rr By Connie Lauerman Tribune Staff Writer ry bout a year ago, Frank, a 63-year-old so-cial worker, went to his doctor for an an-nual physical In good health except for high blood pressure that was controlled by medication, Frank (not his real name) wasn't expecting "any big deal" But he received shocking news: He was diagnosed with cancer of the liver.

He was quickly put on a regimen of standard chemotherapy that worked well, shrinking his tumor by 75 percent Frank's elation had barely faded when he began losing weight and learned that his cancer was growing again. He was told that surgery and radiation wouldn't help him, and he was sent home with a recommendation to join a support group. A few days later, his luck changed again. His oncologist called with another suggestion: Frank could probably enter a drug trial at the University of Chicago Medical Center and receive an experimental anti-cancer agent called CPT-11, a drug developed by a Japanese yogurt company, that might help him. Frank, who says he has "no compunctions" about being experimented on, jumped at the chance.

If a cancer patient's only ray of hope is taking a chance on experimental treatment, the University of Chicago surely ii one of the best places to be. It is one of only six phase-1 drug-testing programs in the country supported by a contract with the National Cancer Institute and may be testing up to 20 new drugs at any given time. Phase-1 trials focus on the newest anti-cancer agents, drugs that often have not been given to humans. The purpose of a phase-1 trial is not to determine how well a drug works or even if it works, but rather how much of it a patient can tolerate without life-threatening side effects. Recruiting volunteers is never a problem.

"Some patients with cancer get told that there's nothing available for them," says Dr. Mark Ratain, chair of the medical center's Committee on Clinical Pharmacology and director of the phase-1 testing See Drugs, Page 7 Illustration by Michael Dinges coach named Russ Sumka. Actually, it -wasn't the photo that was for sale it was the broken picture frame around it "The photo was just something that was printed on a piece of cardboard stuck into the frame," Sumka said. "It was like those stock photos that are inserted in wallets in stores just a space-holder to show how your own photo will look in there. "I fell in love with that photo.

It's no one special just a kid playing a great game for one reason: the love of the game." Of course, Sumka is guessing at that he, and we, don't know anything about the boy in the picture, which is part of its beauty. The boy isn't wearing a fancy uniform, the field isn't manicured, the base is not anchored to the ground in a professional way; the shoes aren't expensive, there is no scoreboard in sight there aren't any teammates or opponents in the shot You can't see the expression on the boy's face but as Sumka said, you know he is happy. "I wish every big-league baseball player and big-league owner could take a look at that photo, and realize that baseball doesn't owe them a thing but that they owe everything to the game of baseball," Sumka said. "It is the greatest sport of all, and they are ruining it and if they don't understand it then they should look at the picture and figure it out" Too simple a perspective on a complicated labor-management dispute? Too unsophisticated a viewpoint on a matter involving many millions of dollars? No. It's not too simple.

The oft-repeated sentiment is that little boys grow up on dusty baseball diamonds dreaming that they will someday make it to the big leagues. But we have learned something in recent years and especially this year. We have learned that the dream is right there at the beginning the dream, the answer, is what little boys and girls already have when they first begin to play. That's when they are full of excitement that's when they are filled with joy: Need they 1 dream of making it to some big-league stadium someday, so they can complain about their lives and resent their paychecks and walk away from the game? A better argument can be made that the big leaguers ought to dream about being that boy in the photo. They should envy him.

He has no reason to envy them. The owners too they are not baseball. They apparently know nothing about baseball, or if they once did, they have forgotten. Baseball hasn't disappeared just major league baseball. As long as there are children like the boy in the photo, the big leaguers and their agents, the owners and their lawyers, are irrelevant.

Not needed. All of them players, owners, agents, lawyers ought to look very hard at that photo and take a hint It's an unexpected lesson for a boy to teach a group of adults, but someone has to say it to them, and it might as well be a child: Grow up. Toasting an icon The Pop-Tart marks 30 years as part of American life The product is also a staple on "The Late Show with David Let- By Steve Hymon Special to the Tribune was one of those weird juxtapositions that stop you in the middle of your breakfast. There, in the newspaper, super terman" know, 'r' kids, after sex enjoy a tasty Kellogg's and comedian Paula Poundstone has been the queen of Pop-Tarts ford's favorite flavor is frosted blueberry and her favorite way of eating Pop-Tarts is to smear them with butter. You've probably noticed what it's done for her figure.

This was the kind of publicity for which product managers would sacrifice their firstborn. Except that the Pop-Tart, which turned 30 this month, is already way, way bigger than Cindy Crawford. From Battle Creek to the battlefront, from the junior-high crowd to late-night TV, Pop-Tarts reign. During the Persian Gulf war, they were model Cindy Crawford was confessing her passion for, of all things, Kellogg's Pop-Tarts. As a child, it seems, Crawford and her two sisters would each get two Pop-Tarts at the beginning of the week.

"My sisters would eat them right away, and I'd save mine," Craw ford recalled. among the items most fre- Td eat them since she mentioned in her act several years ago that she was addicted to them. It was a smart move. Poundstone still receives boxes of Pop-Tarts backstage and in her hotel rooms from adoring fans. There's even a band in Florida called the Pop-Tarts.

Why all the hoopla over a 1.8-ounce, cardboard-like, 3-by-4-inch slab of machine-assembled pastry? Pop-Tarts aren't on every breakfast table. They aren't as widely consumed as Corn Flakes or See Pop-Tarts, Page 7 tfV3w in front of quently requested by U.S. sol diers at the front. They also on ft FY" can be found in the ration packs of British marines on maneuvers. The teen magazine Mouth2Mouth recently conferred on Pop-Tarts the prestigious label "forever cool." Thursday, and they didn't have any." The newspaper blurb said Craw- J.

Tribune photo Illustration by Bill Hogan; toaster courtesy of Williams Sonoma I fi, I.