friends in the media who have a voice, a platform, a broadcast, blog or column that can help spread awareness and education about leukemia and the bone marrow registry.
We’re happy to tell our story so that 10 years from now someone will come up to us and tell use that we helped save their life.
In St. Louis, my old pal Howard Balzer had Jenn and I on his radio show for an hour in studio and a lunchtime chat. And and old acquaintance St. Louis Post Dispatch media writer Dan Caesar wrote a wonderful piece exploring our story.
Caesar also pestered the Cardinals into allowing us to swab that day. I’m pretty sure we were a giant nuisance to their community relations department, but we added about 40 people onto the registry that night at Busch Stadium so I’m grateful to everyone on Team DeWitt and the folks in St. Louis for coming through.
In the third chapter of this essay, I’ll be writing more about dealing with the MLB teams – the incredible generosity and awesomeness of some and the insolence of others around baseball in Chapter 3 next week. But today, I’m focusing on the amazing people on our journey.
So many people got involved and demanded to promote the cause in some way.
In Tampa, Steve Duemig insisted that I stop by his studio on the way to St. Petersburg and talk about my wife’s disease, our tour and ways that folks could help us save lives on the bone marrow registry. That hour of radio produced about 25 people who stopped by our booth at the Rays game to get swabbed on Day 10.
In San Diego, the guys from The Mighty 1090 were fantastic and very inquisitive about Jenn and our journey. I even helped them get their equipment working.
In Milwaukee, my old Sporting News Radio pal Doug Russell did a piece promoting our cause. And NBC affiliate WTMJ did a story on the weekend news on our day at the Brewers game and Summerfest. Michele Fiore was a wonderful person.
In Arlington, a major thanks to John Blake and the Texas Rangers for allowing us to promote our cause during the sixth inning their game with the Oakland A’s on Day 12.
In Kansas City, my old pal Jeff Montgomery had us on the pre-game show from the outfield fountains and we promoted the bone marrow registry. Kansas City – what a great place. One of my favorite places, stadium, fountains, lots of friendly people. I would live in Kansas City. I wouldn’t say that about many places.
In Toronto, my lifer pal and local celebrity and TV host Gregg Zaun, brought the entire Zauntaurage out in Canada and got us booked onto Breakfast TV there and gave us an incredible segment live from Rogers Centre before the game.
Gregg Zaun is about a good of a guy as I’ve ever met in sports. I was a kid trying to figure out sports radio. He was a kid trying to figure out how to get to the big leagues without all of the God-given ability of some of his peers. He was one of the hardest working dudes I ever met in sports. That was 1993. He had an amazing baseball career. Got a World Series ring. Played a bunch of places. Smart and clever as any guy I ever met in baseball.
I’m really proud of what’s he’s doing up in Toronto. He’s known as the Don Cherry of baseball. He’s a straight shooter, a tell-it-like-it-is guy who is perfect to talk about baseball in Canada.
We laugh like hell when we get together.
And he’s been my friend for 22 years.
And he made time – and went way above and beyond – to help us.
No one on the tour did more.
That means so much to me – especially as this pirate stares at 50.
Of course, it was a miracle I even made it to Toronto…
* * *
ON THE MORNING AFTER OUR marathon weekend of fun in St. Louis and Milwaukee, the next stop on our tour was Detroit for Day 16. We decided to skip
