Sergio Romo makes an immediate impact on teenage girl battling cancer
Sep 30, 2014, 8:45 PM | Updated: 8:46 pm
As the San Francisco Giants get ready for their wild-card game on Wednesday, many will remember the last time the team was in the playoffs when they swept the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series in 2012.
Giants pitcher Sergio Romo threw the final three outs in the series, earning the save to win the World Series for his team. Most pitchers would revel in the magnitude of the situation after the game, enjoying the champagne showers and hoisting the trophy.
But Romo was more focused on finding a quiet area of the clubhouse to get updates on his friend and avid Giants fan Ariel Gariano, who was in dire straits battling a relapse of cancer, according to a story on Mercury News.
Romo and Ariel met in 2010, when he was set to catch her ceremonial first pitch at a Giants home game.
Ariel Rose Gariano was 14 and dying of cancer when she stood scared and sobbing on the mound before her first pitch June 9, 2012.
Romo ran out to give her a pep talk, to lift her spirits.
As it turned out, it was the other way around.
Romo caught her pitch, then never let go. Over the final months of her life, the pitcher and the patient traded texts, tweets and old-fashioned letters.
As the Giants pulled within one game of winning the 2012 World Series, Ariel’s health had hit dire straits. The teenagers mom, Crystal Gariano was attempting to get an ambulance for her daughter, but Ariel’s only focus was on the game.
Ariel started running a temperature. She had discolorations on her face. An infection was flaring up. She needed to be admitted to Children’s Hospital Oakland.
But not until Romo finished the job.
“I was on the phone with the doctors. And Ariel was screaming, ‘I’m not going. I’m not leaving until after the game.’ “
Anne Marsh, her secondary oncologist, struck a deal. “She said: ‘You know what? I’m just going to call you every 15 minutes, and I’m going to let the ER know that Ariel will not be in until the game is over.”
The Giants took a 4-3 lead in the top of the 10th inning. To finish things off, Romo struck out Austin Jackson. Then Don Kelly. Then Cabrera, who was expecting a slider and got a fastball.
Ariel celebrated, but weakly. Then, with the strength she had left, she sighed, “OK, I’m ready to go.”
Ariel got better after the scare in October, but passed away on Dec. 10, 2012, a little more than a month after she fought to watch her favorite player make a championship-winning save.
Romo’s contract in San Francisco is up after 2014, but Ariel’s family intends to root for the player no matter where he pitches in the future.
The Giants nominated Romo for the 2014 Roberto Clemente Award, given to the player “who best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual’s contribution to the team.”
The Gariano family could make a pretty good argument for why Romo has earned this award.
