Inside Sarah Langs inspiring ALS fight which hasnt slowed her baseball media rise

Maybe you know someone like Sarah Langs.

Someone whose pure love of baseball was passed down through generations like a perfect relay, center to short to home. A person whose passion for the game is a thread throughout his or her life.

Langs grew up on the Upper East Side, hearing her mom and dad tell stories about Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente by day and watching her Mets by night.

“It was just such an important part of who I was growing up,” Langs says of baseball. “I’m an only child so we would sit at home and watch games. I always said the summertime — and baseball having the summer all to itself — is a big part of it. So once school was over, mid-June, it was baseball time and it was another companion.”

Precocious, Langs made it to ESPN as an entry-level researcher right out of the University of Chicago. She quickly laid roots at the network.

She impressed the likes of Buck Showalter and Aaron Boone with her curiosity, knowledge and love for the game. ESPN’s lead MLB broadcaster, Karl Ravech, became a mentor. MLB insider Buster Olney soon made her a regular on his podcast. It all led to more opportunities at MLB.com and on MLB Network.

By 2021, she was so well respected in the industry she made MLB history as the TV game analyst on the sport’s first all-female broadcast crew.

“It was a dream come true,” she says.

Today, Langs, 29, has been diagnosed with ALS, which is rare for a woman so young.

The disease most commonly occurs between the ages of 40 and 70 and it is 20 percent more likely in men than women, according to ALS.org.

There is no hereditary reason for her condition. It is unknown why it has struck her.

The disease is described by ALS.org as a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. There is no cure.

Since Langs is so atypical, it was difficult to diagnose. When it was finally confirmed she had ALS, she told her doctors, her family and her bosses how she would approach it.

“The number one thing for me was to continue being me,” she says.

Gehrig also wasn’t cowed by the disease that is still sometimes referred to by his name. His courage is what made his speech even more powerful. In the face of ALS, he had the strength to utter the legendary words, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Gehrig talked about the outpouring of love he received, and Langs has had the same response. It is, of course, in part because there will be sympathy for anyone who has such an insidious disease.

But it is more than that; there is a resiliency and gratefulness that Langs radiates with a smile. It belies what she is dealing with daily. Over time, ALS takes away a person’s ability to walk and self care.

“But it is not an issue for us as a family emotionally when we’re together,” Dr. Charles Langs, Sarah’s father, says. “It’s all I think about every day that I am awake. It’s obviously devastating, but her strength, her perseverance. I take care of patients. I’ve been around sick people for the last 35, 40 years.

“I’ve never seen a person countenance their illness as Sarah does. It blows me away. It is a source of inspiration.”

Gehrig continues to be just that to this day. School children still read his words in class and they are plastered on walls.

In Building 4 on ESPN’s Bristol campus, there is a mural of Gehrig’s speech. On the morning of Langs’ first day at the network in 2015, she snapped a picture of Gehrig’s words.

“It is so iconic,” she says. “I think ‘luckiest’ resonated because I felt so lucky to be starting a dream job at ESPN, sitting in a sports-themed lobby, I felt like, ‘I belong here.’”

Growing up in the late ’90s, Langs was a Mets fan, which bred, ahem, a special type of childhood.

Her elementary years were spent being teased by her Dalton School classmates about the dynastic Derek Jeter Yankees. She took the rivalry seriously.

When “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” would play in the seventh inning of games, Langs would time it just right, “Root, root for …”

“Not the Yankees!” she would yell.

At about 6 or 7, she and her father were headed into a coffee shop. In the window, a kid had on a Jeter shirt.

“Daddy, I can’t go into that place,” Sarah said.

After she went to her first game at Shea, which happened to be a win in Mike Piazza’s debut with the Mets in May 1998, the team went on approximately a 20-game, nearly 10-year losing streak with Langs in attendance. Finally, they won again with her present.

“The Mets beat Chris Capuano and the Brewers on May 13, 2007,” she says.

No one in the Langs family has ever played the game at the highest level, but baseball is in their blood. Langs’ mom, Dr. Liise-anne Pirofski, grew up in Santa Clara, Calif., a San Francisco Giants fan in Willie Mays’ heyday in the 1960s. There were no TVs in her home and she would listen to the radio, wanting to be the next Russ Hodges.

“It was not like something that one could do,” Pirofski says, adding she thought she could have developed a pretty good home run call.

Instead she became the chief of Infectious Diseases for Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center.

Langs’ dad grew up in Roslyn in the same era as his wife. His mom’s side had some Pittsburgh roots and he loved Clemente.

The history of the game resonated with him, becoming the type of fan that during a baseball conversation breaks into a little Vin Scully, “Two and two to Harvey Kuenn …”

Dr. Langs is a nephrologist, a kidney specialist, at NYU Langone Health. The doctors have been married for three decades. At one point, there was a thought that Langs might end up going into the family business of medicine.

At the University of Chicago, she majored in comparative human development, which combined sociology, psychology and anthropology. But her heart was set on sports.

Before her senior year in 2015, she interned with SNY, and then, back in Chicago, she worked for the network that had the Cubs and White Sox at the time. Out of school, it was off to ESPN’s stats and information department. She took off her Mets hat and has been a pro ever since.

Before Boone and Showalter were in the manager’s offices in The Bronx and Queens, respectively, they worked with Langs at ESPN. Baseball people are “prove it” folks. In the clubhouse, in the dugout, on the diamond and when they work in other fields.

Ravech immediately noticed Langs’ talent.

“Karl kind of took her under his wing, in my opinion,” Showalter says. “He would introduce her and she’d come into meetings. She was kind of analyzing some stuff, and I think Karl gave her the voice and the confidence to speak up in those meetings. The more you listened to her, she had such a passion for baseball. She was very knowledgeable. She was respectful, but she wasn’t afraid to say what she knew. She always had a positive spin.”

Boone noticed her love of the game and her “humble spirit.” ESPN can be competitive, as it has been the pinnacle of sports media for a long time. People arrive with big dreams.

But that bubble and fight for the next promotion can sap the passion right out of someone, especially when you are required to stay until all the games — especially clock-less baseball — end.

“That’s what always stuck out about Sarah for me,” Boone says. “She loves what she does. If it went over and we were there forever, she loved being there as much or more than anyone else.”

As a rookie, she just wanted to contribute.

“Since the day we met on ‘Baseball Tonight,’ Sarah’s ‘Will do, yes can, no problem,’ attitude endeared her to everyone,” Ravech says.

She was known to send thank you emails to colleagues after shows and seasons. They were sincere, not looking for gain.

“In this industry, who does that?” says longtime ESPN anchor Kevin Connors. “Sarah Langs because she’s one of the most extraordinary people I’ve worked with.”

By 2017, Olney was having Langs on his podcast. In 2019, at 26, MLB.com offered her a job as a writer and researcher.

“I knew this was the beginning of the world being exposed to the brilliance of Sarah,” Ravech says.

She would write and then end up on the air for MLB Network. She would perform so well, SNY would call for their shows, too. She started doing podcasts with her dear friend and fellow MLB reporter Mandy Bell. She would continue to conduct research for Ravech and “Sunday Night Baseball.”

In July 2021, she would be the game analyst for a YouTube telecast of the Rays and Orioles, featuring all women for the first time in major league history.

Langs did her mother’s impossible dream of becoming the next Russ Hodges one better — Sarah was an MLB TV game analyst.

Gehrig’s speech was one of the most eloquent in history, sports or otherwise. And it has echoes of Langs’ story.

“I have been in ballparks for 17 years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans,” Gehrig said.

During the playoffs, just after Langs went public with her illness, the Mets, during their game against the Padres, put a picture of her on the Citi Field scoreboard.

“We’re all rooting for you Sarah,” it read. “To donate, visit project ALS.org.”

At the World Series in Philadelphia, Justin Turner, the recipient of the Clemente Award, which is given annually to the player that displays commitment to helping others, was there.

“He came up to me and said, ‘I’m Justin Turner of the Los Angeles Dodgers,’ ” Langs says. “I’m like, ‘I know.’ He said, ‘I just want you to know we are all rooting for you. We are all thinking of you. You are really important to this game.’ ”

In late January, Langs will be honored at the BBWAA Awards dinner along with the league MVPs, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year award winners. She will be the recipient of the “Casey Stengel, You Can Look It Up” award, which makes sense because she is the one who is so good at quickly finding out interesting nuggets about the game.

In Gehrig’s speech, he also said, “When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body — it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dream existed — that’s the finest I know.”

Langs’ boyfriend of six years, Matt Williams, who does behind-the-scenes NBA stats and research work at ESPN that have made him a favorite of the likes of Doris Burke and Adrian Wojnarowski, has been there for her.

“I call him my Superman, and I stand by that,” Langs says. “His life has been turned upside down. And the fact that he is able to help take care of me on a daily basis, usually the only one taking care of me on a day-to-day basis and do his job, I don’t know how he does it. I’m in complete awe.”

Langs’ mom has changed her schedule to take her to appointments. In June, her best friend, Hewon Park, came with her to the MLB Draft Combine in San Diego to assist. Her bosses have been supportive. She has a team around her.

And there is something else the game teaches that stretches from Gehrig’s inspiring speech to every spring when pitchers and catchers report.

“There’s always hope,” Pirofski says about her daughter’s situation. “Research, science, there’s just hope that there is something out there.”

Langs shares that quality with Gehrig. She also has his work ethic. This week, she is at baseball’s winter meetings in San Diego for MLB.com. On Monday, she did a spot on TV for “Hot Stove” and wrote a piece for MLB.com after the Mets signed Justin Verlander. She spoke and wrote with joy.

“I’ve loved baseball my entire life,” Langs says. “And I’ve seen that baseball loves me back and I’m getting chills as I say this because that’s not the goal. I just want another chance to thank everybody.”

So maybe you know someone like Sarah Langs. If you love baseball, you certainly do.

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