Trey Mancini’s MLB comeback was all about who was in the stands to see it

During an off week from Trey Mancini’s cancer treatments in 2020, he and his then-girlfriend, Sara Perlman, headed to the tennis courts near their Baltimore condo.

Lightly hitting the ball back and forth seemed to be doing what the couple had hoped — getting their bodies out of the house and their minds off Mancini’s Stage 3 colon cancer, allowing them a semblance of normality in the heart of the worst period of their lives — until Mancini glanced over to the court to his left.

“I looked over and I just lost it,” Mancini said. “It was really the only time that full year that I really, like, lost it.”

Sara, now Mancini’s wife, was at a loss for what happened so suddenly. But to Mancini, what he saw on the next court over was a dream he realized he might never experience himself: A father played tennis with his two young children, and Mancini wept.

“I looked over, and this guy is the luckiest person in the world to me, because he had two kids,” Mancini said. “And in my head at that point, I didn’t think I was going to live for another year or two and get to have children like that man had over there.”

He told Sara in that moment, when his breathing was back under control, that he would give anything — really, truly anything, even baseball — “to be healthy and have what that guy over there has and be able to have kids.”

That moment has been playing in Mancini’s mind lately because of how far he and Sara have come from that day on a Baltimore tennis court, tears falling down his face. “It’s a moment I always carry with me,” Mancini said, and that was especially true on the field at Angel Stadium last week, when Mancini returned to the major leagues after a three-year hiatus.

He had already made one emotional return, having beaten cancer after an abrupt diagnosis that rocked many Orioles fans, let alone Mancini. He was a homegrown star, and his perseverance then — and an incredible Home Run Derby appearance in 2021 — is emblematic of Mancini’s character. The years haven’t changed him.

As he walked up to the plate that night in Anaheim, California, Mancini almost cried for an entirely different reason. Six years removed from what Mancini calls “probably the hardest day” of his 2020 nightmare, Sara Perlman Mancini stood up in the stands as her husband walked to the plate.

She raised Sadie high in her arms so Mancini could see their daughter.

“I could just tell, the smile on his face was the happiest I had ever seen him,” Perlman Mancini said.

Life is not perfect. Mancini knows that. He has faced more than enough barriers — a life-threatening diagnosis, a difficult 2023 season that ended with him getting cut by the Chicago Cubs — but there are perfect moments.

None could be so perfect as that night in Anaheim, when Sadie watched her dad play a Major League Baseball game.

“To have her there the other night,” Mancini said, “it seemed like a dream.”

A reason to try again

Mancini didn’t even want to look at his bat, because life with it in his hands hadn’t been easy.

After the longtime Orioles first baseman was traded to the Houston Astros midway through 2022, ending his time with the organization that drafted him, Mancini’s results on the field were shakier. He helped the Astros win a World Series title and signed with the Cubs, but after 79 games, during which he produced a .635 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, Mancini was designated for assignment.

Mancini spent spring training in 2024 with the Miami Marlins, but that didn’t lead to a major league opportunity, and he decided against infrequent playing time in Triple-A.

So from April 2024 onward, Mancini put the bat away. He focused on repairing himself in a way that perhaps was lost in the drive to return from cancer to the baseball field as quickly as possible.

“I really lost all of my confidence, essentially, at that point, and I was pretty broken,” Mancini said of being designated for assignment by the Cubs. “I wanted to be away from the game and felt like I didn’t want to come back for a long time. Having to get over everything that happened, starting with my cancer diagnosis, it was a tough several years. It was right in the middle of my prime and just slowly kind of lost confidence over the years until I lost, really, a sense of who I was as a baseball player.”

Life went on away from the field. The couple traveled the world in the summer — a first for them, a freedom afforded by not being beholden to the baseball calendar.

But then Mancini’s phone buzzed. It was Brady Anderson, a longtime Orioles player who was part of the front office that drafted Mancini in 2013.

A fire, starting slowly, began to grow within Mancini once more.

“Brady texted me in late July of 2024, and he said I should give it another shot, and if I wanted to, and I was fully committed to it, he would help me,” Mancini said.

Mancini took Anderson up on his offer.

“Brady’s text kind of confirmed deep down what I knew, that I should keep going and give it another shot,” Mancini said.

That October, for the first time in months, the bat was back in his hands as he hit with Anderson. Thus began another grueling cycle for a first baseman on the wrong side of 30. He signed a minor league deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2025 and performed well at Triple-A Reno, with a .895 OPS.

But when Mancini opted out of his contract on July 1, 2025, hoping to receive an opportunity with another club to return to the majors, no calls came. So once more, Mancini turned his focus back to life away from this game. Sara gave birth to Sadie in October 2025, and any thoughts of a comeback seemed outlandish.

“I hadn’t even thought of baseball and didn’t think anything was going to happen,” Mancini said. “I would’ve been crazy to hang onto the hope that I would even be playing baseball the next year. Nobody wanted me then, why would anyone want me now?”

Anderson did.

When Anderson became the Angels’ hitting coach in November, he told Mancini he would push Los Angeles to sign him. Mancini appreciated the sentiment but didn’t really think much of it until a minor league deal began formulating in January. Despite everything, despite understanding that a path to the majors was far from clear, Mancini signed on for one more ride.

“In his heart, and in mine, too, because I saw it through him, he was not at peace with the way he left the game,” Perlman Mancini said. “And, granted, a lot of people don’t leave the game when they feel it’s time. Obviously, Father Time, injuries, all those things might happen where you don’t get to say bye to the game of baseball or whatever sport it may be. And he’s very lucky to have this opportunity through Brady, and he knows that.”

For Triple-A Salt Lake, Mancini once again performed. But a major league chance still seemed unlikely.

“The odds were definitely stacked against me,” Mancini said. “Look, I’m 34, I’m a first baseman and right-handed. It’s analytically not sexy at all.”

He came close to retiring in late May. When the Salt Lake Bees played the Round Rock Express near Austin, Texas, Mancini’s family gathered for the games. Perlman Mancini said her husband thought that would be it — that he would officially hang it up, call it a career and move on with fatherhood as his sole focus.

But something struck him.

“He always had in the back of his mind, ‘It would be really cool if Sadie saw me play in one major league game. That’s what I worked so hard for,’” Perlman Mancini said.

And on June 8, at Angel Stadium, it all came to fruition.

“I felt like he was so good to the world of baseball and he’s such a good person, I just wanted him to get one more shot,” said Perlman Mancini, who covered the Orioles for MASN. “Whether it’s a success and it’s long term or if it’s just that one week with the Angels, he deserves to be on that big stage one more time and leave it all out there.”

A night that meant everything

It was like debuting all over again. And what a debut it was.

Trey Mancini, No. 34 for the Los Angeles Angels, playing first base. His wife, mother and mother-in-law cheered. After three years away, an injury opened a short-term pathway to the majors, and in his first game, Mancini recorded three hits and drove in a run.

“To make it back up and have a game like that and help a team win a baseball game, a Major League Baseball game, I forgot how good it feels and what an honor and privilege it is to get to play up here,” Mancini said.

It’s not that Mancini ever took that for granted or found it to be a chore earlier in his career. But time away can heighten the feeling once back around the best players on the planet, “and it’s something I really tried to soak up that night.”

He knew it wouldn’t last forever. So as time slowed down, he looked into the stands and found his wife and daughter — the people who made this even sweeter than his debut a decade ago with the Orioles.

On Wednesday, with Vaughn Grissom returning from the injured list, the Angels designated Mancini for assignment. He played five games, none as impressive as his first game back. He’ll hit waivers, where Mancini will be available for 29 other major league teams. If he goes unclaimed, Mancini faces a choice: accept an outright assignment to the minors, elect free agency in search of another opportunity, or choose to retire for good.

If it’s the latter, Mancini can say goodbye knowing he made it back one more time.

“I love that he was able to leave the game, and the game kind of leaving him now that he was DFA’d, with a different taste in his mouth,” Perlman Mancini said.

But that decision is for another day. For now, that day in 2020 is at the forefront of Mancini’s mind, just as it was when he saw Sara and Sadie in the stands last week. He dreamed of being a father. That dream was in jeopardy — so he cried on a tennis court on the hardest day of his cancer journey.

Six years later, Mancini is healthy. He’s with Sara and Sadie. And just to top it all off, he earned at least one more ovation before the curtain closes on his baseball career.

“To see Sadie in the crowd as I was playing last week, I just thought about that moment, and it was hard to keep it together,” Mancini said. “As time goes on, you don’t play those moments in your mind as much, and you’re just in the moment of that day, but it’s something I try to keep with me. It helps with perspective, knowing how lucky I am to be here and be healthy and have our baby girl that we love more than anything in the world.”