Story by LBPostSports’ Mike Guardabascio
It was early in the morning on an overcast, cold Friday—but those are the things (the time, the weather) that don’t matter, the things you talk about when you don’t have anything else to talk about. Maybe not coincidentally, baseball can be one of those things, too. But that was the setting as four Dirtbags piled into Taylor Krick’s SUV to go visit Dallas Humphreys at the Miller Children’s Hospital. Humphreys, as you undoubtedly remember if you’ve heard his story, is the eleven-year old PONY ballplayer who’s been grappling with leukemia.
He also, it turns out, has quite the memorabilia collection going in his hospital room, with Dodgers posters and flags, and now a slew of Dirtbags stuff too. Krick and the other players, Jonathan Jones, Steve Tinoco, and family friend of the Humphreys Jake Thompson, did not arrive empty-handed. They had a ball, a pennant and a poster, all signed, as well as the first-ever distributed Evan Longoria Dirtbags bobblehead, the giveaway from Saturday night’s game that fans have already started lining up at Blair for.
Of course, memorabilia isn’t everything—stack all the collector’s items in the world from the floor to the ceiling, and it probably wouldn’t mean as much to the Humphreys as the fact that Dallas has had a few fever-free days in a row now, an improvement that was the reason his doctors cleared the visit from the ballplayers on Friday.
During the hour and a half they spent with Dallas, the Dirtbags joked with him about his Mohawk (which they all agreed coach Weathers would never allow them to wear), Evan Longoria fangirls, and video games. Thompson promised Dallas that if he got his Xbox hooked up in his room, he’d come back and beat him at MLB ’09 with the worst team in the game. The consensus bet was on Dallas, by the way.
After their visit was over, the players climbed back into Krick’s SUV and headed back towards campus, as Thompson educated them about white blood cell counts, and told them a little more about Dallas. Then they figured out what time they were supposed to meet at Blair to warm up for their game against Davis that night (they won, by the way, and the batters who visited Dallas combined for five hits, four RBI and five runs scored).
Sometimes the fun, trivial things, the things that don’t necessarily matter like haircuts and video games, like maybe baseball, are all there is to talk about—but leave that for talk. If you’re looking todo something that matters, follow the Dirtbags’ lead and register to be a bone marrow donor at Saturday or Sunday night’s games at Blair. It’ll only take a quick second, you’ll get a free ticket to May 15th’s game, and you won’t have to donate unless you’re a match, and you know you’ll be helping to save someone’s life.
Baseball, and especially Dirtbags baseball, has always been fun—but for Dallas, and for any future leukemia patients, take a minute to do something that matters this weekend while you’re having a good time.
To learn more about what you can do to help Dallas and his family, as well as other leukemia patients, click here.