Bob Padecky: SRJC assistant Sam Gomes determined to keep fighting ALS

The word went out - Sam’s scuffling - and so came the response. Sam can’t go through this without us. He meant too much, taught so much, cared so much. He never complained, even in his 50s, when those teenage fastballs hit the dirt and caromed, his body becoming target practice. Like a labrador retriever Sam would faithfully retrieve the ball and throw it back to the SRJC pitcher and tell the kid to elevate the ball.

Sam Gomes didn’t whimper. Sam doesn’t do whimper. Don’t learn anything by whimpering. Get back to work. And that’s what his kids, now adults, did after they heard the news that Sam was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) on May 4.

Brandon Hyde, the Baltimore Orioles manager, and Timmy Cossins, the team’s third base coach, were taught the art of catching by Gomes at SRJC. Sam needs a jersey. So the guys got an Oriole jersey, stitched in “GOMES 35” on the back and sent it to the Santa Rosa resident. Gomes’ favorite number was 35 after his idol, Vida Blue.

And thus began The Great Jersey Migration. Nine MLB jerseys hang on a wall in Sam’s hallway, all with “GOMES 35” on the back. His museum room, which once was a bedroom, now a Cooperstown look-alike, has three more jerseys: a No. 7 from the San Diego Padres (Jason Lane), a No. 75 from the Orioles (Cossins) and a No. 25 White Sox jersey from Andrew Vaughn, the Maria Carrillo grad now with the Pale Hose. The jersey has an ALS sleeve patch from the day the White Sox hosted a fundraiser at the ballpark.

Gomes can see it all. From his wheelchair. To him, for those who know him, who have experienced him, it is so incongruous to see Sam in a wheelchair. It’s seeing a bodybuilder not being able to pick up a napkin.

As recently as two years ago Gomes was catching both games of a doubleheader in a men’s league. He was as present as the sunrise. A Santa Rosa High grad, Gomes taught catching at his alma mate as well as Windsor and Piner. As recently as March 2020 he would be catching bullpen at SRJC. As recently as February of this year he was walking three miles alongside Alice Bunting, his fiancee and caregiver.

Which makes it doubly disturbing for Gomes is to watch a MLB game and see coaches waddle to the first base coaching box who look like they swallowed a 10-pound ham for breakfast. He becomes livid in his disgust.

“They have everything at their disposal!” said Gomes who worked 30 years for the Pepsi Bottling Group. “They have nutritionists, trainers, all the latest exercise equipment They don’t have any excuses. I don’t like fat coaches.”

So said a man who took care of his body, now finds his body is not taking care of him. It is the ultimate betrayal for someone who found fitness a friend, an ally, that exercise was its own reward. Why go out of your way to shorten your life? Why not work every angle? Food, meals, sleep, they extend, not reduce.

“Show up, do your job,” Gomes would tell his catchers. He carried the same philosophy about living. Do your job. Get healthy. Stay healthy.

So when the symptoms began in 2020, when his right wrist weakened, Gomes tried to work it. After all Gomes had caught doubleheaders with torn rotator cuffs in each shoulder, injuries that would require surgery. The man had been in the squat for 50 years. Catching was a boxing ring for him and he took pride he never went down for the eight-count.

“How many people you know who catch both of games of a doubleheader when they are 58?” said SRJC’s coach, Damon Neidlinger.

Only those who live by this philosophy: Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

“There are two types of people,” said Gomes who will be 61 on Dec. 27. “Those who run away or those who fight.”

Those that fight against the dimming light, who will go kicking and screaming all the way, ALS will test that resolve. ALS has no cure, no treatment. Researchers have found no link to lifestyle. Speculation flies like so much confetti in the air, with about as much impact as the confetti. Five in 100,000 people get the disease. It is on no one’s mind until it must be.

“I suspected before it was diagnosed,” said the man who took care of is body. Sam Gomes doesn’t pretend. He doesn’t hide. He takes ALS like another kid fastball caroming off his arm. Directly, like his response to the question I was uncomfortable in asking.

“Have you thought about what will happen?”

In his wheelchair, with a raspy voice, Gomes didn’t pause.

“When I get to the Pearly Gates,” he began, “I’m gonna ask God a question.”

He paused for only a second. Felt like an hour.

“I’m gonna ask God who killed (John) Kennedy?” said Gomes of the president who was assassinated in 1963.

Pause. That’s a fastball I never saw coming. Gomes was doing what he always has done - think of others. He never minded being in the last row of a team picture.

“And you’re next thought?”

He spat out the answer. It was the answer Lou Gehrig, Dwight Clark, Jim Catfish Hunter and countless others have asked.

“What is ALS? How do you get it? Why me?”

And then Gomes cried. He knew the answer to the first question, ALS is a neurodegenerative disease. He doesn’t know the answer to the other two. It is of no comfort to him that no one else does either. What he does know, what he still has in his control, is what to do with the time he has left.

And that is to receive what has never wanted - attention.

“I’ve always been self-sufficient,” he said. “I never wanted anyone to worry about me. I just wanted to make my guys better.” Gomes is selfless, an uncommon word these days, a word that invites a chuckle. How could Gomes spend 34 years working with amateur catchers - quite possibly the most unglamorous job in sports - and feel satisfied in anonymity?

Cossins, the Oriole coach who went to Santa Rosa High School, may have the best answer and the most complimentary tribute.

“To be like Sam,” Cossins said, “is what absolutely drives me every day. He’s with me in spirit, everyday when I’m at the ballpark.”

He’s a teacher who doesn’t need applause. That attracts attention. Young people, be they kids in a class or kids taking pitches, can smell a phony. Neidlinger marveled at how Gomes moved smoothly among all that testosterone.

“It’s like water over rocks,” said the SRJC coach. “Kids that age are rough around the edges. They have some growing up to do. Sam was that water. Listen to him. Watch him. Over time that water will smooth out those rocks. Sam showed commitment, discipline. These are qualities the kids can use later in life, whether they continue to play baseball or not.”

A dirt fastball off the facemask will straighten a spine. Cause for pause. Now what? Be it baseball or later in life, everyone faces pain, discomfort. Figuratively we all take fastballs off a facemask. Then what? Don’t whine it out. Work it out.

When Hyde was at SRJC, Gomes worked him out after practice was over, on his throw to second base. The workout might go late, to dusk, maybe beyond. The ball might get a little fuzzy to see. No worries.

“Thank you, Sam, for all your help,” said Hyde who prepped at Montgomery. “The passion you showed rubbed off on me. It was impactful.”

Passion? Gomes would hold catching camps for kids 8-18, take their gloves home after a workout and refurbish them

in time for the next day’s workout. Lead by example? He knew of no other way.

“Here’s this guy in his ‘50s taking fastballs off the facemask,” said Neidlinger of a SRJC practice. “The kids see he is loving it. How can you not be impressed? How can you not want to please him? How can you not love the guy?”

How can you not come over every Wednesday to see Gomes, as good friend Scott McKenna does? Rob Williams, another close friend who spearheaded the acquisition of those MLB jerseys, visits every Thursday. Cards, letters, texts, emails - the only thing that hasn’t arrived at his house is a carrier pigeon with a note in his beak.

“You never know how many lives you touch,” Gomes said. He never knew how many people would be paying attention to someone who “never wanted special treatment.” He never imagined being the Energizer Bunny would need a ventilator who’s unable to lift his arm to scratch his nose. He never imagined his independent soul would welcome so warmly his angel, Alice.

“What do you think when you look at Sam today?” I asked Alice.

“I don’t see Sam,” said Bunting, a retired elementary school teacher and former adoption counselor for the

Humane Society of Sonoma County. “I see Sam when he was younger.”

The Sam Gomes who saw every day as an opportunity. The Sam Gomes who could push through 20-hour days because it was necessary. The independent Sam Gomes who depended on people, who gave him his spark, so content no one noticed.

Well, people do notice. To everyone who crossed his path, Gomes always will be the Energizer Bunny in shin guards. The guy you could talk to. The guy you may have forgot what he said but you’ll always remember how he made you feel.

Thanks, Sam. That’s what they’re saying when they come over. Thanks for the reminder, that while everyone dies, not everyone lives.

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