Goold: Cardinals scout Mike Roberts is a mentor, fighter

From Derrick Goold at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on November 28, 2013:

The only championship ring Mike Roberts ever wore was the first he received, a gleaming 1982 World Series ring from his employer, the Cardinals. After scouting several games one day in 2010, he realized the familiar weight on his finger was gone and he wasn’t sure where he misplaced it.

Roberts and several other scouts had spent the day at USA Baseball’s training complex in Cary, N.C., where, in order to get a view of two games at once — a tip he often gave younger scouts — they had settled near a tree. It was sweltering. Roberts didn’t notice the ring had slipped off his finger until back at the hotel. It was found safe about midnight, but when Roberts went to Joe Almaraz’s hotel room to tell his colleague about the ring, any show of relief had to wait.

Roberts explained why he was so exhausted, at times preoccupied.

He told his friend the reason he’d lost weight, so much that the ring wouldn’t stay on.

“I’m going home to Arkansas when this is over and I’m going to have surgery,” Almaraz recalls Roberts’ telling him. “It might be good. It might be bad. I’m prepared for it. I’ve got cancer, and I don’t know how bad it is. I’m battling this thing.”

Read the full article here: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/cardinals-scout-is-mentor-fighter/article_6a38a774-0583-5793-bf05-ae4afb35ac47.html



Originally published: December 2, 2013. Last Updated: December 2, 2013.