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Donnie Brooks is 5'6". As a college freshman facing a lefty throwing gas, he sat on the fastball and hit it about 420 feet to center. He stood at the plate admiring it until the 6'3" catcher leaned down and told him, "You better run, little man."

For decades, the game and Donnie's work seemed to have no end. He spent about 30 years as a paramedic and flight medic, playing upper-level ball the whole time. Then, in 2013, as he turned to throw home from second base, it felt like someone had stabbed a hot knife into his right shoulder. A year later, months after starting a flight medic job in Montana, he was in the hospital and diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It took him months to walk normally again.

Donnie had spent his career taking care of other people, and he had no idea how to be the patient. It took him a year and a half to come to terms with the diagnosis. He didn't play baseball for six years.

Then one Tuesday night in 2019, he saw a men's league post on Facebook and asked Susan how she'd feel if he tried again. She said yes, on one condition: no spending thousands on gear until he knew he could still play. The next morning, a manager called needing a catcher. In his first game back, batting cleanup for the first time in his life, Donnie went 4-for-4 and drew an intentional walk.

Today he's getting stronger every season. He also keeps ice in his cap under his catcher's helmet. And in the dugout there's Susan, a nurse, team mom, team nurse, and the one who can tell he's fading before he admits it. She'll pour cold water over his head in the middle of a team talk.

In this episode:

• Philly roots, Astros rainbow uniforms, and a top four of Randy Johnson, Nolan Ryan, Ken Griffey Jr., and José Cruz Sr.
• Why baseball is "a game of adjustments," and how Donnie waits on a sign while he watches the hitter's feet
• Going from a lifelong caregiver to a patient
• The six-year break, the Facebook post, and a comeback that started 4-for-4
• How heat affects MS, and the ice-in-the-cap trick
• The partner who reads him before he says a word
• "I've worn the blood of every type of person, and it's all red."

"I'm a ballplayer who has MS. I'm not a person with MS who plays baseball." — Donnie Brooks

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Emily Marr has played softball since she was five. By 12 she was a pitcher only. She doesn't throw a fastball at all, and on a full count with the game on the line, she'll throw you a changeup and dare you to hit it.

That took her to the University of North Dakota, where she spent three years riding team flights out of the snow, getting through 20-hour weeks with her teammates, and finding out that the bonds you form while suffering together can last a lifetime.

Then, the summer before her final season, her mom was diagnosed with glioblastoma. Emily stayed home. She put softball out of her mind and spent every moment she could with her mom. That October, much sooner than anyone expected, her mom passed away.

She went back to school because she needed the game. She was told she'd make the travel roster, and she was pitching like she'd never left. But after months away caring for her mom, she couldn't pass the team's conditioning test. While the team traveled, she stayed behind in her apartment, alone in a state far from her family. She kept retaking a 300-yard shuttle until she'd strained a quad and a hamstring and developed tendinitis in both ankles. This past May, she came home for good.

What she took from it isn't bitterness. It's the most freeing advice in this series so far: you don't have time to throw your helmet. It can end any second. Play loose, love the game, and remember it's not that serious.

Her mom never missed one of her games. And she never said a word about Emily's performance on the ride home.

In this episode:

• Becoming a pitcher-only at 12, and living without a fastball
• Why Montana Fouts' presence on the mound meant more to her than the stats
• Snowed-in travel and teammates who became family
• Choosing her mom over the season without a second thought
• Making a promise to herself, working past the point of injury, and knowing when to walk away
• Why parents who stay quiet in the car raise confident players
• Figuring out who you are after a sport that's been your whole life since age five

"Just play to have fun. When you do, you play your best. You play loose, carefree, and everyone wants to be around you." — Emily Marr

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• Content note: This episode includes suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and drug use. I'd put a note at the top: "This episode includes discussion of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and addiction. If you're struggling, call or text 988 (US) any time."

It started with one boy in the eighth grade who mooed at her every time she walked by.

Kelly Blitz couldn't put the shame into words, so she turned it on herself. She was drinking at 13. Then came weed, then meth, and a world she didn't know existed. At 15, her parents sent her to a therapeutic treatment center in Utah for 15 months. Her head understood they were trying to save her life. Her heart heard something else: even my own parents don't want me.

She was in trouble with the law at 19 and on her way to prison by 21. She went on to serve five prison terms. Every time she got out, the same thing happened: everybody was happy to see her, somebody said let's have a drink, and she was right back where she started.

Rock bottom was nine months pregnant, living in a U-Haul she'd rented with fake money and a stolen ID, and trying to work out how to end her life. A couple of weeks after giving birth, she was arrested again. She had burned every bridge and had nobody left to talk to but God.

What she found in a federal prison drug program changed everything. Drugs and alcohol weren't her problem. They were her solution to every problem. The hardest lesson was also the one that set her free: "You're exactly where you belong. You created this." If she created it, she could create something different.

The story that follows will stop you. Kelly's baby daughter was adopted by a woman who had spent years trying to have a child, through failed surrogacy and round after round of IVF that didn't work. That little girl was later the flower girl at Kelly's wedding.

Kelly will be 10 years sober this January 1st. Today she's a case manager at a treatment center and sponsors women in AA who are right where she was a decade ago. Her husband, who has his own past, is coming up on a year sober. She also plays a mean game of softball, and she hasn't let James Gass forget the day he called off a pop-up she was standing right under.

In this episode:

• How one bully in eighth grade set off years of self-destruction
• "He who cares the least has the most control," and why that nearly killed her
• Getting out sober, going right back, and why it kept happening
• Accountability as the moment that "blew her mind"
• Hearing "she's not meant for you" in a prison cell and understanding it years later
• Why someone who's been there can reach people a therapist can't
• Kindness, curiosity, and "my disease wants me separated. God wants me connected."

"If you stop making it worse, God will make it better." — advice Kelly got from the women who helped her early on

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