Man tours ballparks in wife's memory

BOSTON - A man is on a mission to visit all the Major League parks this year, but he's not doing it for the love of the game, he's doing it for the woman who was the love of his life.

Bob DeVries lost his wife Shawn to a rare heart condition last year.

“We had no idea she was sick. The night she died from cardiac arrest she ran five miles,” he said.

While trying to cope with her passing, friends and family encouraged him to honor her memory by doing something they both loved to do – catch a ballgame.

But one wasn’t near enough. Bob wanted to do it in every Major League ball park in the country. Fenway was his 28th stop on Friday night.

“When you come to Fenway as a kid, like Wrigley, it always sticks with you,” DeVries said.

Wearing his Chicago Cubs jersey, DeVries stood proudly on a busy Lansdowne Street, moments before the Red Sox took on the Yankees in a big series.

Bob and Shawn were diehard baseball fans. Bob is a Cubs fan. Shawn was a Yankees fan. They named their dog “Jeter.”

“As a Cubs fan, everyone has bragging rights over me. So when I married her I legally became a Yankee fan, although I never told her this, but I was somewhat of a Red Sox fan,” he said.

Close to his heart are the couple's wedding bands which he now wears around his neck. In his hand, an extra ticket for his wife Shawn.

The seat next to his was empty once again on Friday. And even though his journey is coming to a close, it is one that has helped him move on.

“It's the experience of saying the first year Shawn passed away, I didn't sit on couch. I got up and did something,” he said.

“It's time to get an apartment, time to get stuff out of storage. It’s time to get a normal life as normal as it can be,” he said.

Bob will head to Toronto next, and then he’ll head to New York to see the Mets and the Cubs, which will bring an end to his tour.

Fittingly, those same teams played when the couple went to their first game together.