HOUSTON -- Doug Brocail is a fierce competitor. His pitches regularly hit speeds in excess of 90 mph. He is a standout athlete, but he also has heart disease.

“He’s definitely a medical marvel,” Dr. Jim Muntz said.

Doctors found a 95 percent blockage in an artery coming off his heart in spring training two years ago when he was playing for the San Diego Padres.

“It just shows you that anybody can get this disease whether you’re 20 or 70,” Dr. Muntz said.

Today, Brocail is his happy-go-lucky self. But lying in that doctor’s office two years ago was anything but fun.

“I wasn’t worried about it until I fully understood,” Brocail said. “Once he focused in on my arteries, he said, ‘how much do you smoke a day?’ I said, ‘wrong answer.’”

But what Brocail did tell the doctor is that he dipped tobacco for close to 30 years, and his father had heart disease.

“It’s the fact that if it runs in your family,” Brocail said. “If your daddy has it, there’s a good chance that you can get it.”

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Doug Brocail

Brocail said having a wife and five daughters motivated him to get help. Be now plays with four stints in arteries around his heart:

“You know I feel younger,” he said. “Physically, I’m in the best shape of my life.”

Brocail has been known to get a bit emotional at time when he doesn’t pitch well. It happened this year in Los Angeles, and he said it happened to him during spring training.

“And you just want to put your head through every cupboard door, and then you realize that’s not my house, and I’d have to repair it,”

And it’s those emotional outbursts and rushes of adrenalin that Brocail’s doctors were initially concerned about when he talked about pitching again. Marathoners had competed again after having stints put in their hearts, but the doctors were skeptical about Brocail trying to do it.

“Athletes like that were coming back with stints, but we didn’t have anyone in the major sports where adrenalin was involved,” Brocail said. “I didn’t think they were going to let me play anymore, and it came down to me coming out and saying, ‘hey look ya know what if I’m the guinea pig?’”

So Brocail, who stands at 6 feet 5 inches tall, has to be one of the biggest living guinea pigs. He takes 26 pills a day and never once forgets how fortunate he is.

“You know I’m very blessed,” he said. “Every day I get on the field is a plus. I could have been dead.”

“Proud to see him respond to his treatment and do so well,” his doctor said. “He’s very good about staying on his regimen of his medications.”

That the team has played winning baseball much of the season has been a bonus for Brocail. But then again at this point, he sees everything in life as a bonus.

“Cause my theory is now — I beat it,” he said. “If I drop dead tomorrow, I’m doing what I love. I’m at home where Drayton McLane brought me back here, and I get to see my girls every day that we’re home. I get to be with my wife, and I get to be with my teammates. There is no better job or no better life in the world than what I have.”

So after nearly losing his life, the 41-year-old Brocail now embraces it more than ever.”

“Obviously if I would have had open-heart surgery, my career probably would have been over, but I still maybe could have talked them into letting me come back,” he laughed.