Thursday, September 16, 2010
Bobby D's Blog - 2010 Day 165
So this is it – this Saturday at Sun Life Stadium or Dolphins Stadium or Joe Robbie Stadium or Land Shark Stadium or whatever other names the stadium in Miami has had, my Quest to attend a regularly scheduled game at all 30 MLB ballparks for a second season in a row will come to an end. What will I do when it is over? Great question – I am about 10 blogs behind so I will be able to catch up on all that has happened over the past 2 months. I won’t be traveling as much so that is a good thing. What I do wonder is how I will feel at about 10 pm EST when the game is over Saturday night?

This has been a long, strange but thoroughly amazing journey this summer. It all started on Easter Sunday at Fenway Park for the opener of the baseball season where I saw the Yankees play the Red Sox. I was single and living in Boston at the time and yada, yada, yada I am now living in Columbus, OH and have a wonderful girlfriend. Everything that has happened in the middle has been a blur.

What I do remember from the blur are all the wonderful people I have met along the way. All the lives we have touched and I do say we. This journey this summer has been a team effort. You may not realize it but you have made a difference as well. From the kind messages of support to helping spread the word about SADS – we all have made a difference. When we are done tallying the donations we will be well over $16,000 – who would have thought!!!

We have partnered with a wonderful sponsor – Cardiac Science who has donated in Shawn Marie’s memory an AED to Spring Mobile Park in Salt Lake City as well as $2,000 as a matching donation to Shawn’s Memorial Fund. My sincere thanks to Al Ford from Cardiac Science who has championed our cause –Laura and I were fortunate to meet Al at Citi Field this past Friday. That’s us in the photo with Al’s son and some of his friends.

The thing that has touched me the most has been the spirit of all the wonderful people I have met who are either living with a SADS condition or have lost a loved one to a SADS condition. From Meg Sullivan in Minnesota who lost her sister to ARVD and has herself been diagnosed with ARVD, the same condition we lost Shawn to, to the Letino family of Libertyville, IL who are living and thriving with Long QT, to the 50 folks we hung out with in Salt Lake City to the 80 folks we hung out with in New York City and to the Metoyer family of LA who I had the great fortune to meet at Dodger Stadium. To meet just one of these families is an honor – to meet all of them in one summer, well words cannot describe the feeling.

I will make a plug now for the SADS Foundation. When Shawn Marie passed away I contacted the ARVD research group at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. I wanted to partner with them and do some good with the baseball stuff I was doing. It took them 3 weeks to get back to me. I also contacted the American Heart Association and well, they were just a bit too big to get involved with a two bit operation like mine. Then I got an email from Laura Wall at the SADS Foundation who basically offered me help in my recovery from Shawn’s passing. She didn’t want anything from me – just offered words of comfort and assistance. From that simple 200 word email grew the Where’s Bob? Campaign (we have the t-shirt to prove it) that has raised in excess of $16,000; has a life saving AED machine placed at a ballpark in Salt Lake City and has spread awareness of SADS that will save lives that we will never know about.

If you are so inclined to donate to various charities and foundations please take a moment to consider the SADS Foundation. They are a small group that does wonders in saving lives and assisting with people like me who have lost a loved one and if you don’t think your donation matters – well at lunch the other day with Laura her Blackberry kept beeping; she told me that she gets an email every time a donation is made to the SADS Foundation. The VP of Marketing gets an email with every donation!!! Very cool knowing your donation will not go unnoticed.

Well that’s about it for this update – travel to Miami awaits to complete this chapter of the Quest. As Charlie so wonderfully pointed (have I mentioned how wonderful she is!) out last night – the Quest is not over this Saturday night, just this part is now complete. Who knows what the future will bring…but it will be a fun ride, that’s for sure ;). So for now this is so long and good bye where like LeBron James – I am bringing my talents to South Beach (whatever those talents may be.)

One last thing - do me a favor and keep Laura's email beeping this weekend!!!