CINCINNATI – Riley Reisner looked at his three friends and shared the big news.
“Guys, we made the Dodgers Instagram account,” Reisner shouted.
What seems like something any other teenager would say say, until Reisner moved on to the next mission.
“We gotta get Mike Trout,” Reisner said.
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That proved this wasn't just any ordinary night for Reisner, Nathan Michaels, Carson Chapman and Christopher Roddy. Make-A-Wish arranged for the four teenagers to stand on the field before the Home Run Derby on Monday as part of a three-day experience at the All-Star game.
The two-hour whirlwind of autographs-and-photo ops with All-Stars, announcers and even a few Hall of Famers proved overwhelming for the teens and their families.
Chapman, 15, a die-hard Cardinals fan from Murray, Ky., thrived off the support from his community to fight leukemia. He’s one of eight children from the small town who has battled cancer in the last year. Parents Ed and Chyrstie said their son’s fight isn’t surprising.
The only thing knocking their son back was an encounter with Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina.
“You definitely get taken away from your normalcy when you get diagnosed with a disease like that,” Carson Chapman said. “You don't always get to do things other teenagers do.The friendships with families and the way the community came together to fight the disease is amazing.”
Michaels, 15, an Omaha, Neb., native, learned he had Hodgkin’s lymphoma a few years ago. Shortly after the diagnosis, his father Dave and Angie said their son went straight to his phone before a four-month battle that included 56 doses of radiation. Michaels is now in remission.
“He looked up baseball players who had the same thing and found Jon Lester and Anthony Rizzo,” Dave said.
Roddy, 15, from Glen Rock, N.J., was born with hydronephrosis, a kidney disorder that worsened until he had a kidney transplant, which his father Joe provided, the day after his 14th birthday. Joe and Sheri Roddy have taken their son to 10 Major League baseball parks, including all five in California.
“They’ve been awesome,” Christopher said. “We’ve had the best time.”
Reisner, 13, has Stage 4 kidney disease and is waiting for a transplant traveled from Los Angeles with his parents Brett Reisner and Lisa Esserman. Riley played baseball until he was 10 years old.
“This has given him that spark, that fire that he had when he was playing on All-Star teams and traveling teams,” Brett Reisner said. “You can really see it since we’ve been here.”
But this night wasn’t about what these four have been through. It was about a two-hour experience on the field that just wouldn’t stop. As Angie Michaels would say, “Just when you think it’s over the top, more keeps coming.”
The All-Stars kept coming in waves, and the boys filled their baseballs with autograph after autograph. MLB Network allowed the four to join the set. Commissioner Rob Manfred, Chris Berman and even Curt Schilling stopped by.
Schilling, a cancer survivor, asked Michaels about his favorite team. Michaels didn’t blink, stared at the former Red Sox legend and said, “Yankees.” Schilling couldn’t but laugh.
Roddy met his hero Mark Teixiera next. Then Chapman reminded Hall of Famer Frank Thomas that they met at the St. Jude’s Hospital in Memphis.
Then it happened. Angels outfielder Mike Trout walked over. Only he brought teammate Albert Pujols with him to sign autographs and take pictures. That caused Reisner to blurt out, “I wasn’t ready for that."
“It’s perfect,” Chapman said. “That’s the best player of the last generation and the best player of this generation.”
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Four baseball fanatics continued to talk baseball and even made their picks for the Home Run Derby. Michaels took eventual runner-up Joc Pederson. The other three took Pujols. They’ve been talking baseball since their first night in the hotel together.
It’s a bond not only the four will share, but also their families.
“All the moms were sitting around and we felt like were on a vacation,” Sheri Roddy said. “The boys are family now. We’re all like a family now.”
Before the Home Run Derby, the boys headed back to their suite, where they were mobbed by almost every Major League mascot. Almost out-of-breath, they took turns recounting everything that just happened.
That’s when Reisner pulled out his phone and showed his father that big news, one that caused Brett to take a second to figure his son out. How can you tell four teenagers dealing with extraordinary circumstances are doing the same things everybody else is doing?
“We made the Dodgers Instagram account,” Reisner said.
There’s all the poof you need.
