Lee Smith knew something was wrong.

Shortness of breath, lost weight.

“I thought I had cancer,” said Smith, who spent most of his Hall of Fame career as a closer with the Chicago Cubs. Turns out it was his heart, pumping only about five percent of the blood that it should have. And on July 4, 2024, Lee Arthur Smith underwent a heart transplant that saved his life. That sounds only fitting for a reliever who was credited with 478 career saves.

Diagnosed with a rare genetic heart disease, cardiac amyloidosis, Smith, 66, credits his wife, Dyana Penigar, for her persistence in finding the right medical professionals to spot the problem.

“Amyloidosis… I had no idea what it was,” Smith told me. “Actually, you know, all the time I played ball, man, we all got checkups. We didn’t look for things like that. You just look for high blood pressure and nausea. And really just looking for diabetes and stuff.” Both of Smith’s parents had diabetes.

“And because they say I’ve got amyloidosis.. it’s one of those things… the heart gets really hard. And you don’t have enough blood and oxygen to pump up the blood. My wife knew all this crap about me, man. I learned a lot about it because I actually felt it was cancer. When you see all the folks with cancer… I started losing weight and stuff like that. I mean, I could walk a hundred feet, then I’d stop and sit down somewhere, man. I’d go get up, go do some more, then stop and sit down.”

The 6-foot, 6-inch Smith weighed over 300 pounds before he got sick. The rural Louisiana native was down to 193 at the peak of his illness and is now back to a more reasonable 225 pounds.

Smith, who pitched 18 seasons with eight different teams, underwent successful heart transplant surgery in Dallas at Baylor Scott & White with Dr. Amarinder Bindra,  and says he is feeling much better.

“I tell you what, it’s been awesome since then, man. I mean, the guys took care of me. The hospital was unbelievable,” he said.

Cardiac amyloidosis is a genetic condition that leads to abnormal protein deposits in the body.  It is rare but more common in those of African and Caribbean descent. The disease often presents itself at first in ways that are unrelated and therefore difficult to diagnose.Because of Smith’s size, doctors were concerned about finding the right heart for his transplant procedure. But fortunately he did not have to wait too long.

“But the main thing now is… I try to make sure a lot of people understand that it’s not just only the Black man and a lot of women who think it couldn’t happen to them,” Smith said. “I want all to understand that you should look into getting checkups. Because you know our grandpa, our dad, didn’t go in for no damn checkup.”

Fred Mitchell covered Lee Smith’s Hall of Fame career with the Cubs as a sportswriter with the Chicago Tribune.