It was a beautiful sun-drenched morning as we headed to Historic Bowman Field. This has always been exciting for me. It’s still hard for me to get my mind around that Bowman Field now hosts a major league game every year, complete with the huge digital scoreboard and perfectly manicured field. It’s an absolutely amazing facility that makes every young ball player feel like they’ve made it to the big leagues when they get to play there.

I’ve gotten to watch my sons, along with my nephews Chance and Jed, enjoy this special experience, and when they played the National Anthem before the game, I had tears in my eyes. This is nothing unusual for me at any ball game, but this day, it had even more meaning.

As I’ve written before, the Webb family’s baseball roots run deep, all the way back to my grandfather playing at Bowman, but this day was something much different. See, my 19-year-old nephew Jed was recently diagnosed with, and is battling, Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The game I attended was intended to be a celebration of baseball for Penn College of Technology. It was senior day, and it was one of those warm late-season games that everybody looks forward to. Parents, players, coaches, and fans were glad to be in the sunshine and looking forward to playoffs.

I can’t begin to tell you how much it meant that the Penn College baseball team led by Coach Chris Howard chose this day to bring attention to Jed’s battle and wrap their arms around him with love and support.

I have known Chris for as long as I can remember. I even coached his son Alec in Little League and always enjoy talking, usually baseball and sometimes life with him. But it is my brother, Brian, and my nephew Chance, who had a stellar career playing for Coach Howard, that has forged a relationship far beyond baseball. This also includes Jed, who is the younger brother, and, at one time, I thought he might follow in his older brother’s Penn College cleats on the mound. Jed chose a different path and, within a year of graduating from Hughesville, was educated on welding and living in Wyoming. He is now back home.

It has always been obvious to me he was a hands-on, work-hard young man who didn’t care much for sitting in a classroom year-round, which I completely understand. Jed would give you everything if he was pitching for you or working for you in the backyard.

It was just a little more than a year ago that Jed was pitching for Hughesville, and my son Jimmy was managing against him for Loyalsock. As a father and an uncle, I would root for Jimmy’s team to win but for Jed to throw a lot of zeros and exit before the loss, as the Lancers squeaked one out over the Spartans. Now, as a 19-year-old kid to be facing cancer, it is very hard to even imagine.

This is where that love of Jed’s baseball family built during his life has helped beyond belief. Coach Chris Kish and the Hughesville baseball folks have already wrapped their arms around him, including a fundraiser to help the young man with the uncovered cost of fighting cancer.

Where they left off, Coach Howard and Assistant Coach Heath Heller stepped in. Heath and Brian went to high school together. What a small world it is. As I talked with and watched the beginning of the game, I realized that this love and support were exactly what the doctor had ordered. He was just a young man enjoying the game of baseball with his family, which included everybody on the field and in the stands.

All the support and prayers Jed has received from so many have helped him to stay positive and to keep moving forward.

He has continued to work his job, go to the gym, and do everything he can to win this inning life has dealt him. He has received five treatments for lymphoma, and all have gone well, although not without some complications. The prognosis currently couldn’t be any better.

Please continue with the prayers, thoughts, and positive energy if you happen to run into Jed. A heartfelt thank you to all from my entire family.

God Bless America.

“We often talk about the brotherhood of being a member of the Penn College baseball program. There is a bond, a brotherhood that will connect us forever. And because of that, we want to do whatever we can to help someone who is part of this brotherhood, and that extends to family members of former players.”

Coach Howard