Sean Kirst tells the story of a how a stage-four cancer patient and his physician son shared one last baseball game, and how it fulfilled the father’s dream of seeing major league baseball in Buffalo.

The Blue Jays could not allow them in the park, but the tenants of Seneca One Tower stepped in.

The Jays replied that tight MLB restrictions made it impossible at the ballpark. Jemal, blown away by the email, did not face such constraints. He knew what he would do for one more day with his own father, who died years ago, and he quickly forwarded Ryan’s email to allies in the tower. “Once you read it,” said Keith Belanger, head of corporate services for M & T, “there was no way you weren’t going to do something.” 

Belanger knew it had to be the 22nd floor. He asked his staff to install a flat-screen monitor a little earlier than they had planned. Those workers figured out how to access Blue Jays games through streaming, allowing Hal to follow the play-by-play.

The Millers were invited to Seneca One for the first Blue Jays game at Sahlen Field, against Miami. Though Jemal was out of town, he asked Sean Heidinger, his business development specialist, to lead Ryan, Hal and his brother Joe upstairs. They settled by the window, where Heidinger provided pizza and wings, then stepped back to appreciate the moment.

BuffaloNews.com

A very heart-warming story.