The home-run king and his dying fan have restored my faith in sports and life and the whole damn thing.
“Hello, Doris, it’s Jose Bautista,” says the slugger, down the line. “Happy birthday.”
Man, oh, man, Doris Rudy’s smile would clear the Green Monster at Fenway, and for five magic minutes her pain is gone.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” — a hoarse whisper above the morphine drip.
Doris Rudy is in extra innings.
On June 28, healthy and hard-working all her life, she awoke and could not climb a stair. They found cancer all through her and gave her three months.
Her world has shrunk to a palliative care bed at Kitchener’s Freeport Health Centre. Eight bouquets brighten her room, in every colour in God’s garden.
Three of her roomies have died.
Besides family and friends, one thing has kept Doris going. The Blue Jays — especially the mighty bat of Jose Bautista.
On good days, she watches them on her ceiling-mounted TV. On bad days, someone holds a speaker to her ear.
High fly ball. Yes sir! There she goes. Joseeeee Bautista!
Doris turned 90 on Monday. A friend of mine on Manitoulin Island, Rachael Opolko, told me about her last week, while I was loafing at the cabin. Rachael’s mom, Cheryl, a nurse, is pals with Doris.
One call led to another and Paul Beeston, the Jays president, told Bautista about Doris.
Now, I can’t imagine Milton Bradley or Kenny Rogers calling a fan. Or Alex Rodriguez or Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds, unless Doris was a steroids dealer.
The sport that starred Ty Cobb, who beat up a fan who had no hands, is not over-stocked with nice guys.
But Jose Bautista is no Milton Bradley. Everyone says he’s all class. The real deal.
Sure enough, he calls Doris from Rattlesnake Point, during the Jays’ annual golf tourney.
It could be! It might be! It is! Home run! Jose Bautista!
“Thank you for being a fan at this time of your life,” Jose tells her, or something like that. The whole team appreciates it, he says.
“Keep hitting home runs,” she replies, but she’s already running out of steam. “I wish you...” Breath. “A home run....” Breath. “Every game.”
Tank’s empty, so someone holds the phone to her ear and Bautista says other comforting things, then good-bye.
“She was tickled pink. So were the nurses. We all were,” Cheryl tells me later. “What’s left in her life that she cares about? Her family and the Blue Jays.”
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/08/10/ba ... g-jays-fan
