It is with profound sadness that I share with you that my continued battle with esophageal cancer is coming to an end. With the continued love and support of my wife, Nita, I have exhausted all options with respect to controlling this awful disease. My illness has progressed beyond my doctors’ expectation of cure.
I have spent the past decade of my life promoting hospice care and educating people on its benefits. I am very comfortable taking this next step and experiencing the compassionate care that hospice provides.
I am comforted by the fact that I am surrounded by my family and friends. I thank you for the outpouring of concern, prayers and encouragement that you have shown me. I look forward to spending my final days in comfort and peace with Nita by my side.
Poor Aubs. Dude needs cookies.
Tonight wasn’t really his fault. Someone give him a hug.
Maybe the Giants fans have gotten mad at me, I don’t know. I do want to say I love the fans a lot and will remember them for the rest of my life. They helped me, they helped my uncle. I also say to the Giants, thank you for giving me the chance two years in a row and the chance to get to the World Series. I’m not mad at the team. I say thank you for giving me a shot to play.
…”You know … a few weeks ago, a guy asked me: ‘Who is that white boy who is following you around all the time?’”
I had followed Buck for a year, from New York to San Francisco, from Chicago to Houston, from Atlanta back home to Kansas City. I had heard him tell story after story — sometimes word for word — and I had heard him sing, and I had watched baseball games with him, and I had shared many meals with him (ALWAYS with desert) and I had hugged him many times. I had listened again and again to his peaceful words. I had no idea how to turn all that into a book, how to make people feel the spirit of Buck, how to make people hear the music of Buck, I had no idea. I only knew that I had to do it, that this was as important as anything I would ever write. This is why I wandered around bookstores at night.
“What did you say?” I asked Buck.
Another pause. There’s a certain light in a bookstore that I have come to love. It’s bright enough to make the words clear, but dark enough to keep your head from throbbing. I was standing still then, right next to Steinbeck’s “Winter of Our Discontent.” I remember thinking that I had not read it…
This has less to do with baseball and more to do with birds, staff recommendations, and pocket books, but its Posnanski, so I don’t feel bad posting it anyways.
Seriously, all you book worms out there, go read. Its beautifully written.
