The Orioles’ James McCann has a ‘new perspective on life’ since becoming a father of twins born in NICU – The Denver Post

Christian McCann has discovered, in his mind, a grave injustice.

Earlier this month, the 5-year-old son of James and Jessica McCann broached the subject with his father.

“Daddy, it’s not fair,” Christian exclaimed. “You play more games than we do.”

Christian and his twin brother, Kane, are now playing coach pitch baseball, and they can’t get enough. James, a 10-year major league veteran now with the Orioles, chuckled, as parents with curious children often do.

“I don’t think you want to play 162 games yet,” James replied. “But maybe one day.”

However, his boys’ love of baseball might not have been possible, the McCanns say, without the neonatal intensive care unit where Christian and Kane spent the first seven weeks of their lives.

“If it weren’t for the people at the hospital that took care of us, we may not have two healthy boys right now,” Jessica said. “We owe so much thanks to those people.”

“The NICU is a very special place,” James said. “There’s miracles happening in NICUs daily, but not a lot of people know about them.”

Becoming a father — and being a NICU dad — has forever changed James, providing him a “new perspective on life,” Jessica said, and giving the McCanns a passion to help other families who are in similar situations to the one they were in five and a half years ago.

“Baseball has always been our life. Our day pretty much revolves around the game,” Jessica said. “Since becoming a father, it’s just given him a new perspective on life that baseball actually isn’t our life. It’s what we do every day. But being a dad, being a husband is more important to him.”

Christian and Kane were born 10 weeks premature in December 2017. They were born at 2 1/2 and 3 pounds, and their time in the NICU at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, was focused on giving them a controlled environment to mature.

James and Jessica spent nearly every waking moment together at the hospital. They watched their boys grow day by day, looking forward to each opportunity to provide the vital skin-to-skin contact that babies need. After seven weeks, they took their boys home shortly before James had to report to Detroit Tigers spring training in Lakeland, Florida.

“There are so many reasons why you could be ‘stuck in a NICU,’” James said. “Ours, thankfully, we had a fairly smooth stay. It was more about them just growing and maturing, but we got to know a lot of people in the NICU that were dealing with life-threatening things, wondering if they were going to be able to take their child home one day, if their child was going to make it.”

On Christmas morning, the McCanns and the other families at the NICU were greeted with gift cards from country music stars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, whose youngest daughter was born premature and spent two and a half weeks in the NICU. That act of kindness, the McCanns said, is why they started directing their philanthropic efforts toward NICUs.

“We didn’t know Tim and Faith, and they didn’t know us,” James said. “But knowing there was somebody else out there thinking about [Christian and Kane] who have been in our shoes, it just confirmed that we could use our platform to be that for other people.”

On Mother’s Day each year, Jessica and James visit local NICUs to hand out gift bags and provide support to the families there. They do the same on Father’s Day and during the holiday season in December, the latter to commemorate the time of year when their boys were in the NICU.

Baltimore is the McCanns’ fourth stop in six years, going from Detroit, where James spent his five years in the majors, to the Chicago White Sox for two years, the New York Mets for two seasons and now playing for the Orioles.

“We always knew we wanted to find our niche and find the area that we wanted to give back,” Jessica said. “We’ve been given this platform in Major League Baseball, and we wanted to find who we could best give back to. I think God showed us through our boys’ story in the NICU that the NICU is our passion. Those nurses, those doctors, the whole staff, they were our family during one of the hardest times of our life.”

On Mother’s Day, the McCanns partnered with the Orioles to visit MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center in Baltimore. It was the first time, James said, they took Christian and Kane on a NICU visit, telling their story to the parents and showing their sons the type of medical center that got them to where they are today.

Now, the rambunctious twins are off doing 5-year-old boy things — roughhousing, playing with monster trucks and, of course, being ballplayers.

“They keep us busy,” James said with a laugh, noting that Jessica does the heavy lifting.

“She’s a saint,” he added about his wife. “A lot of people don’t understand. Effectively, our wives are single parents during the season because we’re on the road for two weeks out of the month, and when we are home, we’re gone for a big portion of the day. What she puts up with, she needs a long vacation every year in the offseason when we get done playing.

“She’s the rock, she keeps our family going and I hope that one day Christian and Kane can really understand how much she sacrificed for them.”

Since his sons were born, James has experienced highs and lows on the field. After one of his worst seasons in 2018, the catcher had his best in his first year with the White Sox, earning a trip to the All-Star Game. He later signed a four-year, $40.6 million contract from the Mets, but he struggled and dealt with injuries for two years. He was traded to Baltimore this past offseason to be Adley Rutschman’s backup.

Christian and Kane frequent Oriole Park, following their dad around pregame, watching him play from the stands and greeting him outside the clubhouse after the game.

“It’s super cool to see my boys having a love for the same game we all love,” Jessica said. “They think this is just normal, like everyone’s dad plays Major League Baseball.”

Growing up, McCann said he only dreamt of being a big leaguer. He achieved that goal and more. But his time in the NICU, and the five and a half years since, have given him a different outlook on life.

“Now that I’ve had kids, my greatest achievement is them, not making it to the major leagues,” James said. “Especially in a game with so much failure, getting to go home and be around them when they’re constantly happy, constantly wanting to play definitely gives you a different perspective.

“It makes you remember what truly is important in life.”

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