Here's your new LF (old story but it tells a lot about the man...get your tissues handy)
"Published Friday, August 10, 2001, in the Akron Beacon Journal.
Father forced to say farewell
Death of infant son enlightening to Wilson
BY DAN LEBATARD
Knight Ridder Newspapers
MIAMI: His infant son died in his arms.
Preston Wilson, so helpless, couldn't control any of this, but at least he would control the ending. So, after 10 days, he asked the doctors to stop with their tubes and their monitors, and he took the baby out of the incubator in intensive care.
Holding his boy's tiny hand, rubbing his head, alternately whispering to his son and to God, Wilson kept looking up at that machine, watching his only child's life slip away by the beep. The kid was a fighter, just like his old man, but then Preston Jr. finally stopped breathing and the father began to weep.
``At least I was there for him,'' Wilson said, voice giving. ``Daddy was there for him until the end.''
He is on the phone now from New Orleans, where he is on a rehab assignment, trying to make baseball matter again, and you can hear the pregame clubhouse clatter all around him, life moving on. One of the sport's hardest workers, Wilson picked up a bat only twice in the past month, and he didn't work out at all. He lost a lot of weight and sleep, staying at the hospital overnight, never away from that incubator for more than six hours, but now he is back on the field, trying to heal. In his wallet, he keeps a picture of himself holding his son, both of them entangled in the tubes.
Trista Wilson gave birth to Preston Jr. three months prematurely. He weighed only 1.6 pounds, at the beginning and at the end. His eyes, sensitive to light, didn't open at all until the day before he died. The kid inherited his father's big hands, big feet and big heart. The latter stopped five times one morning alone. Preston was proud of the way his boy fought, and told him so.
``I talked to him a lot,'' Preston said. ``About father-son things. Things I wanted to teach him. Things I was looking forward to doing with him. I was always holding his hand. They say a baby that age can recognize a voice and a touch, so I wanted him to know I was there. Maybe I talked as much for me as for him. There was a lot I wanted to tell him, things I figured I might never get a chance to tell him again.''
He cried a lot, talking to his boy, but never in front of his wife.
``Somebody has to hold it together,'' Wilson said. ``There has to be a stabilizing force. That's not the time for her to be strong. Whatever I was feeling, she was feeling it five times worse because she carried him. The saddest moments I had were when I was by myself with him.''
The only time father and son left the hospital together was for the burial. Wilson made all the arrangements himself. He felt like he needed to do so, for closure. After 10 days, after discussing it with his wife and parents and grandparents, after being told by doctors that there was nothing more they could do, Wilson decided to have the machines turned off.
``Hardest decision I've ever had to make,'' he said. ``The doctors were always beating up on him, pumping his chest, puffing him full of medicine, poking and poking. He was already so fragile, I couldn't watch him being tortured any more. This has been the most trying and heartbreaking time of my life.''
There is this unspoken code in the testosterone-soaked world of sports -- no excuses -- and it's why Korey Stringer collapsed on the practice field last week, killed by his pride. While Wilson's wife struggled with the pregnancy, Wilson's batting average plummeted more than 50 points. He hit .118 with one homer in June and lost his cleanup spot, but he will not admit that he was bringing his problems into the batter's box.
It can't be happenstance, the worst slump of his career coinciding with the worst time of his life, but Wilson won't reach for the crutch, saying: ``I just didn't get it done. It wasn't for lack of effort.''
Marlins management left him alone, calling only to offer condolences, letting their starting center fielder decide when to come back. Wilson figured he would be back in the big leagues by today. In more ways than one, his rehabilitation began Tuesday.
``I can't just sit in the house for the rest of the season feeling sorry for myself,'' Wilson said.
``This experience makes me want to live more than I ever have. To see my son working so hard to live those 10 days, working so hard to breathe, makes me want to squeeze everything out of life every day. Instead of me watching over him while he grows up, now he's watching over me.''
