An inspirational story from the PB Post about our friend Gary Carter:

Around the edge of the warning track and back into the familiar buzz of the ballpark came Gary Carter on Thursday night, riding in the back of a golf cart some 10 minutes before the national anthem and smiling broadly at the thought of this special reunion with his Palm Beach Atlantic University baseball team.

"You doin' all right?" asked The Kid, tapping the top of one Sailfish player's cap as the entire team hustled down to the right-field bullpen area to crowd around their coach and their inspiration.

"Let's get a win tonight," Carter said again and again, shaking hands with each of the players that an aggressive form of brain cancer has kept him from leading these past nine torturous months.

Never in his brief few minutes with the team did the grin leave his face.

Never, judging by his genuinely joyous reaction, did it occur to Carter that pushing himself to the physical limit on a trip from his Palm Beach Gardens home to a college baseball game might not be worth it.

"He wanted to be here for his guys, here for opening day," said Carter's daughter Kimmy Bloemers, the softball coach at PBAU. "He's the Skip so he wanted to be here. He doesn't have a lot of energy but when it comes to baseball, he'll get that energy and that's what he has right now.

"It's a great day."

Opening day, a time for new beginnings, always is. Carter, inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in 2003, wasn't about to let the first game of the Sailfish season (a 3-2 victory with the winning run scoring in the bottom of the ninth inning) go by without getting a taste of that. Getting to hold his 2-year-old granddaughter Alyse for just a moment was a kick, too.

"They're clapping for Pops," Alyse said a few minutes later as Carter rode in the cart past both dugouts, PBAU's and Lynn University's, too. Every player in those dugouts and every one of the 400 or so fans in the park was standing, cheering, wishing that The Kid, 57, didn't have to leave the diamond just yet.

Carter headed up for a private booth in the press box to watch the game for about three innings, joined by his family and by PGA National neighbors like Tommy Hutton and Jeff Reardon, a couple of former major-leaguers themselves. During the game, Carter's PBAU jersey, with his famous No. 8, hung on the dugout railing, a symbol of his courageous presence in the shadow of such frightening uncertainty.

"His whole life is baseball and the Lord, and of course his family," said Reardon, Carter's Montreal Expos teammate and one of baseball's all-time saves leaders. "We went and saw him today at his house. I was actually going over to tell him I would help him if he needed any help coming over here tonight. I wasn't even sure if he was going to go but then he said, 'I'll be there tonight,' like he didn't need help. He talked about the team but not about what he's going through."

What he's going through, with new tumors reported on Jan. 20 and no certain mode of effective treatment, few could ever understand. Where he's headed, though, that's the emphasis at PBAU, reflecting the school's spiritual roots and echoing Carter's stated mission on the day he was hired.

"My primary goal is to help these young athletes become better Christians and prepare them for life, not just baseball," Carter said during that introductory news conference, taking on one more mission after 19 years starring in the majors and about five more spent managing in the minors.

Sailfish outfielder Ethan Perla, who joined the team the same year that Carter did, has been listening.

"It's very rough to see him in the shape he is," Perla said, " but at the same time you have to be happy because he's going to end up in a better place. God be with him. God bless him."

There's no crying in baseball, as we've been told. On Thursday night, in a public appearance that will glow for some time in the hearts of those who witnessed it, gritty Gary Carter kept up his end of that very hard bargain.

Not even cancer can get him down!