Gregg Korbon (GK) and Kathryn Korbon (KK)
GK: My name is Gregg Korban and there’s a little league baseball field called Bryan Calvin Korbon Field and I would like to tell the story of how it got its name. When Brian was getting ready for his ninth birthday he said that he would never make it to double digits, meaning 10 years old. We didn’t understand that because he was healthy but he did not want to celebrate his birthday.
KK: That’s when I got worried. I said, ”okay we’re going to take you in to see somebody”, and he was delighted. He loved talking to somebody, it was just fun for him.
GK: Well over the next few months he said that he wanted to have a belated birthday party. Kathryn came home one day and he was pulling a red wagon down the driveway and he had his camping gear on there and his toys and teddy bears. Kathryn said, ”Brian, what are you doing?”, and Brian said, ”I’m ready to go on my trip”,
KK: And I said, ”Brian, I’ll be so sad if you leave”, and he said ”mom, I have to go”.
GK: Kathryn said, ”well you can’t go away because you have your birthday party”. He said ”alright”, and the next morning was his party. There were several things he did that we didn’t realize until later. He wrote letters to some of his friends and put a sign on his door – the sign said ”Brian is on a trip, don’t worry about me”. And then the kids came for the party. He didn’t want any gifts, but his little girlfriend gave him a kiss and his boyfriend wrote a song for him. And then it was time for Brian to play little league. Now he was always a afraid of the ball, he was the littlest kid on the team, but when Brian got there, he was fearless, he was charging after the ground balls and just having the best time. It was his first time up at bat. He got walked to first base. The next little boy hit a triple, and Brian ran around the bases, crossed home plate and he was the happiest little boy I’d ever saw. He gave me a high-five and went into the dug-out and then he collapsed. The coach brought him out, and I’m an anesthesiologist and what I do is resuscitate people and something inside me told he wasn’t coming back.
KK: As soon as we left the hospital, I thought to myself, ”that is what he was trying to tell us all that time”.
GK: It wasn’t in my belief system that something like that could happen. After he died, I went to the ball field to get my car and it was the most beautiful spring day I’ve ever seen. And there was another Little League team playing when I went back and I was looking at the other kids playing and then all of a sudden everything got very clear. And I got the sense that if I could bring Brian back it would be for me, not for him. That he had finished. And the unfinished business was just mine. That’s the story of how Brian Korbon Field got its name. It was a dumpy field when Brian played. And a month or two later, they renovated it. Now when people come and their little kids play Little League and they say, ”we were playing on this field and it’s named Korbon field – is that any relation?”, and then I say ”Yes!’