World series and serious health crisis

Life is different now for Shane Robinson, who played in the 2013 World Series.

Regardless of where the 34year-old started this season, his family was not going to be with him. His oldest daughter, Tinley Anne, no longer was being home-schooled, so she, his wife, Jessica, and second daughter, Harper, are making only brief trips to see Robinson before June.

“It’s different,” he said. “It’s not too long. I can do six weeks.”

Robinson speaks from experience. There were times during the 2016 season when he was with the Angels that he was away from his family for large chunks because Harper had life-threatening health issues.

Born with esophageal atresia (a congenital defect in which the esophagus is not connected to the stomach), Harper had 11 major operations by the time she was 3 years old.

Harper is in good health now, but her treks to hospitals throughout the country and the seriousness of her condition wore on every family member.

Shane and Jessica didn’t feel like a couple, interacting mostly on the phone and through FaceTime. Tinley Anne felt like she was playing second fiddle to her sister, spending much of her time getting little attention from her parents.

“Baseball on the field made it easy [to get through],” Robinson said. “Leaving the field, it got tough because almost everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong.

“… My wife and I are both Christians. That helped through bits and pieces of it, but there were times we questioned that. But it’s crazy how looking back going through all of that made us stronger in our marriage, our faith, caused us to grow up and mature more than we ever would have.”

Things are good now, thankfully. They will get better when the family is together again in June.