Ontario resident Carla Norris-Hutcheson says she never expected to be given a Blue Jays jersey for her sick husband when she sat alone at the team’s first home game alongside a couple of kind strangers.
She said one moment she was chatting with the youth group, and the next they handed her a gift bag with a blue George Springer T-shirt, her husband’s favorite, saying it was a gift to help cheer him up during this difficult time. . at the hospital.
“I just started crying,” Hutcheson told CTV News Toronto on Monday. “I was really touched that they did that for us. I told my husband what happened and he felt very blessed.”
“It felt really wonderful to have someone take care of me while he couldn’t.”
Her husband, Paul Klith, is in Toronto General Hospital due to liver failure. Hutcheson says she has been visiting him from Gananoque for the past two weeks since he joined.
Hutcheson said she was at the game at her husband’s insistence. She was spending long days and nights in the hospital and he wanted her to have some fun and celebrate her anniversary.
“I felt very nervous. “She had never been alone at a game,” she said. “I was scared because you don’t know who you’re going to sit with and maybe they weren’t talking to me, but everyone was very nice.”
“It’s been a very long journey, every night being alone in a hotel and sitting in a room watching him sleep and trying to help him.”
Things took an even more shocking turn, she told CTV News Toronto, when star player George Springer and his team tracked her down on social media and offered to sign her jersey.
“My husband was shocked. “He thought it was a joke,” he said. “He is very excited and wishes he could go to a game, but for now he only watches it on television.”
Despite being a huge Blue Jays fan, Hutcheson said Klith had never owned a jersey before. He’s never been to a game, he said, because he’s a Tim Hortons truck driver and he’s always on the road, so this signed jersey will be very special.
“We always said we were going to make it to the game this summer, but it was tough for him,” Hutcheson said.
Toronto resident and Blue Jays fan Laura Brady told CTV News Toronto on Monday that she witnessed the entire act of kindness that occurred at the home opener and shared the story on social media to inspire others.
“It was just a purely kind gesture,” Brady said. “It was really lovely to witness.”
She said she never expected George Springer representatives to contact her and ask to be connected to Hutcheson, whose number and name she did not have. She said her post blew up on social media and went viral.
They eventually found Hutcheson after her friend in Gananoque saw Brady’s post and knew it was Hutcheson.
“If my only friend hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have known they were looking for me,” he said.
CTV News Toronto has reached out to the Toronto Blue Jays for comment but has not yet received a response.
Hutcheson said she is very grateful for everyone who came together to show kindness to her husband and herself, especially the youth group.
“Paul, Alex and Chris were the ones who sat next to me at the game and just controlled me, made me laugh and were really good to me,” he said. “I just hope this gets to you so you know how much it really helped me and my husband.”
“We are trying to be very positive during this time and hoping for the best.”