anymore. (Also sad, but true…and I heard it a LOT!)
But, at heart, I’m still a writer. And writers write…
When Jenn was diagnosed with leukemia, I was in the midst of writing “The Peter Principles” – a retrospective of the public work of Baltimore Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos since he got involved in local sports and baseball in 1992. I had released three chapters and I was about 14 chapters into the writing of the book when Jenn was diagnosed.
I literally haven’t opened a file since March 20, 2014.
Here they are if you’re interested in some graduate reading here at the School of Nestor:
Chapter 2: The Error Of Tyranny
Chapter 3: Angelos almost owned Baltimore’s NFL team
At some point I’ll get back to finishing it and crafting it more. I have about 350 pages written and ready to go to press but sometimes life gets in the way. I always joke that I’m waiting for the Baltimore Orioles to win the World Series so the book has a happy ending. (Or perhaps I’m not joking?)
Needless to say, everything kind of goes on hold when your wife is staring blankly at a mortifying death at the hands of cancer on the leukemia floor at Johns Hopkins for nine months. At some point I might write extensively about her brave brush with death and our amazing grace at being given a chance to save the lives of others. But at this point, I think I want to wait to meet her donor because the story is very dreamy and unfinished without knowing his journey. There is no story of my wife’s life without knowing his story because she’d be dead without him.
Plus, I think that I’ll have a hard time topping what Sports Illustrated’s Gabriel Baumgartner wrote in July about her battle with leukemia and what a third-party journalist thought was compelling about our journey. You should read it.
It’s a better primer for my tour than any of the media coverage we received on the road. I learned a lot about her rare form of leukemia by reading the SI piece because the scarier parts of her survival rate were best “unlearned” by me during her battle last year.
And you should also read the letter from the 21-year old German donor who saved her life, too.
This essay is part rambling diary and part rambling insights into my view of the world – and baseball world – in 2015. But really this is also a sincere thank you note for all who helped, participated or followed our #GiveASpit journey during the summer of 2015. I will be profusely thanking many people individually throughout this tale. Many, many people went above and beyond to help us make the tour a success. And, as you’ll learn, there was also brazen arrogance and awfulness in dealing with various folks around the game of baseball as well.
Such is life.
There were a few obvious and recurring questions that kept coming to me over the past year and during the 30 days that I spent on the road this summer going to MLB games and swabbing for the bone marrow registry.
Why did you do this crazy 30 ballparks in 30 days thing?
How did you conceive this crazy idea?
How did you ever get the schedule to line up? (It must’ve taken weeks…)
Well, my first thought was that this journey would be rewarding and educational and nostalgic in many ways but the most appealing part of it was that it would simply be
