The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Fundraiser set for Captains supporter
Eastlake man helps children with cancer while battling spina bifida
Lake County Captains general manager Neil Stein has been with the club going on 11 years.
Until recently, he can’t remember a time when Dave Dietrich wasn’t at Classic Park at his usual spot in his wheel chair at the top of Section 109.
That changed during the 2017 season following complications from a surgery, which Dietrich has had almost 50 of in his lifetime.
“He wasn’t around as often,” said Stein.
Dietrich was in and out of the hospital from April to August 2017 following complications after a surgery.
He’s healthy enough to make it to Captains games in 2018, but admits “I’m still recovering. I’m a slow healer.”
Dietrich will be 50 on Aug. 24.
A day earlier, the Captains will host a fund raiser for Dietrich during its Aug. 23 game against South Bend. All proceeds will help fund an updated wheelchair-accessible van for Dietrich. His previous van needed to be replaced after 18 years.
A van is the only way his sister Cheryl Doyle, 72, is able to transport her younger brother. They are Eastlake residents, and longtime Captains season ticket holders.
The fact Dietrich is celebrating a milestone such as his 50th birthday is significant. It hasn’t been an easy life. Doctors told his late parents their son likely
would not see his 21st birthday. Advancements in medicine helped buck the odds for Dietrich, who’s appreciative for every day, especially during the spring, summer and early fall. That means it’s baseball season.
Dietrich became a baseball fan between the ages of 5 and 6 when he became enamored reading newspaper box scores.
“It was more than the numbers,” said Dietrich. “It was the idea of the team going from city to city. It was kind of like a fantasy of being there.” Dietrich never had the opportunity of living out that fantasy.
“My days are either at the hospital or at (Classic Park),” said Dietrich.
Dietrich has been wheelchair-bound since he was 14 with Spina Bifida, a birth
defect that occurs when the spine and spinal cord don’t form properly. He used braces and crutches until the wear on his shoulders became too much.
“On top of that, I had water on the brain,” said Dietrich of the condition known as hydrocephalus where there is an abnormal build up of fluid in the cavities.
Spina Bifida took his older brothers at an early age.
“My oldest brother Joe lived for about 8 hours, and Ronny died just shy of four years,” said Dietrich, who also battled and overcame stuttering as a youth.
Life has been what seems like a never-ending list of obstacles, but Dietrich looks at each of them with a glass half-full approach.
T”his is what I’ve known. It is what it is,” he said. “I take every day as it comes. I
have my highs and my lows. But I’m here, I’m breathing and I have a good family.”
He’s also found a way to give a new definition to giving back. For the past six years, Dietrich has worked part-time with the WWE to help young children stricken with cancer to meet their wrestling heroes.
“I’ve encouraged him to do that,” said his sister. “He just loves the kids.”
There is a drawback to the job.
“When you hear a kid has expired,” he said. “That’s really tough.”
Doyle helps her brother get through those times, and more.
“You’re going to find some days feel like the lowest point in your life, and you hope the next day it’s a little bit brighter,” said Doyle. “That’s the way
Dave’s been his entire life. He could be really low, then have a two-hour talk, and he’s back up again.”
The Captains — along with Tim Phillis, a parttime News-Herald photographer who helped jumpstart the event — began discussions about helping Dietrich about a month ago. The Aug. 23 fund raiser will feature a Chinese raffle with a variety of sports memorabilia and other items.
Dietrich and his sister said the amount raised isn’t important — “Any amount is appreciated,” said Doyle. What is important is the Captains simply offer their help.
“(It means) everything,” said Dietrich. “It’s nice (the Captains) appreciate you as much as you appreciate them. And in trying times when they step up to the plate and do something you don’t expect,
what can you say?”
Stein said there is no financial goal for the fund raiser. What is important, he said, is assisting a member of the Captains family in need.
“We’ll do everything we can to help Dave,” said Stein. “We’re really appreciative of our group of regular fans. It’s like a little fraternity. For many of us able-body folks, what Dave goes through every day, it’s an eye-opener. So we understand how big of a deal this can be. We know any amount we can raise for them will be huge.”