The Story

Umpire Perry Barber worked the bases at many major league spring training games, but she won't be behind the plate for the regular season match ups. No woman ever has. Also in this episode, Jim Trelease has dinner with Dear Abby.

Ruth Morris’ father, Ian Morris, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2002. He fought it, but in the fall of 2008, the former runner and pilot realized he was going to die. He didn’t want to die in Boston, where he’d spent his last few years – he wanted to die in California, the place he knew as home. Ruth talks with Dick Gordon about how her family decided to drive a van across the country to help her dying father find the warmth and landscape he loved.

Laszlo Hirka grew up in communist Hungary. One day he saw his first American magazine. Laszlo was captivated, and started having dreams of a new life in the U.S. Years later, he evaded authorities, jumped over barbed wire fences and eventually found his way to America.

When Dr. David Miller's children got into a terrible car accident, David found himself in the position of many of his patients: having to decide whether to donate his daughter's heart. Liz Carpenter, a young woman who was on oxygen and confined to a wheelchair because of a worsening congenital heart disease, got a phone call about the heart that could save her life. And Dr. Giorgio Aru, a transplant surgeon, found himself the bearer of the precious gift.