Today was a MOST exciting day for Bryan! His cousin (OK, he’s “twice removed”, but so what?), a relief pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks, was generous enough to gift us with free tickets to the Phillies/Diamondbacks game with fabulous seats, his autograph, and a baseball.

Bryan slept overnight at our house so that we could get an early start for the big game. He was quietly nervous on the way down busy 95. When we arrived at Citizen’s Bank park, the tickets had yet to arrive to my email account. I started to panic but Scott assured us they would be delivered to my phone soon. Sure enough, they arrived. However, the MLB app had to be downloaded, password problems ensued and, finally, success!

As we entered the park, we found our seats – PHABULOUS location behind home plate, but in the shade on this sunny, warm day! I tried to tell the ushers in our section that our cousin wanted us to go to the dugout to met him. They flatly said, “no can do”. The player had to come out of the dugout and wave in order for us to be allowed to approach that area. Dem’s da rules!

Well, through a series of more texts via Scott’s mom in Arizona, we found a work-around and climbed down another set of stairs to the third base side of the Diamondbacks dugout. Scott came out as promised at 12:50 on the dot. We shared a hug, a handshake, an autograph and a baseball. He is such a warm and caring young man!

His father, my cousin Tom, played as a pitcher for the Cleveland Indians and his son is proudly following suit. Last spring Tom suffered a sudden stroke from which he is still recovering. What did Scott do to help his dad? He invited his parents to move from Pittsburgh to Arizona to live with he and his young family. In fact, Scott’s second child, a son, (who joins their two year old daughter) was just born a few months ago. He cares for his young family. He cares for his parents. His father can live with ease on one level, making it easy for him to navigate.

And, he cared enough to remember that Bryan is a Phillies fan and might just like to come to a game and meet him once again.

To top off the day, we got to see Scott play as a relief pitcher. Watching the screen on Phanavision, we saw that he was in the bullpen warming up. Our fingers were crossed that he would be playing. Soon, he was trotting across the field. All of a sudden, we became Diamondback fans and cheered him on. Fortunately, we were seated in enemy territory, so others around us were doing likewise!

Scott did his job well, closing the seventh inning and the eighth in quick order. Then he was gone. But that’s OK. We got to see him play, cheer him on and swell with pride.

And the perfect ending to the Phabulous day? The game went into overtime as the Phillies tied things up at the bottom of the ninth. We couldn’t leave. It was just too exciting, even though we knew a grueling rush hour commute would be in our future. At the bottom of the tenth, with the bases loaded Bohm sent a runner home, and, thus, the Phillies won the game. Not so the other two games with the Diamondbacks that happened on Monday and Tuesday.

It didn’t matter to Bryan. What counted this day was the generosity of a cousin who treated him like royalty!