NEW YORK — Bryan Woo, the Seattle Mariners’ young talent, stepped onto the Yankee Stadium field last week with a clear professional mission: to defeat one of the greatest teams in MLB. But in his heart was a more personal battle, more ruthless than any on-field contest — a race against time … to hold on to his grandfather’s last breath.
Woo pitched as if guided by an invisible hand, taking the game to the eighth inning without allowing a single hit to the Yankees. He looked as if nothing could shake his focus. But in truth, his heart was wracked with a pain that no one on the field knew about.
Shortly after Woo threw a precious no-hitter, the Mariners’ bullpen gave up its grip, allowing the Yankees to win. And then, as if the symbolic loss on the field was a premonition … his grandfather, 95-year-old John Woo, took his last breath.
“We were worried about him, but we also told him to bring his grandpa to the field with him,” Hilary Woo, Bryan’s mother, told reporter Daniel Kramer. “We wanted him to use that emotion as fuel, to make his grandpa proud.”
Bryan Woo also recently made it to the All-Star Game with a perfect inning. But no one knew that, even as he played among the top MLB stars, his heart was still with a quiet hero who was slowly leaving this world.
That game was no longer simply a loss or a victory. It was a quiet farewell from a grandson to the grandfather who had supported his dream since his first days holding a baseball glove.
“I didn’t lose a no-hitter. I gained one last moment with the man who made me love this game.”