CHICAGO -- Whenever Josh Tomlin needed a calming presence, a reminder to relax, he directed his attention to Section 122.
Whenever the Wrigley Field crowd produced pandemonium, he focused on those familiar faces behind home plate. There, in the center of all of the commotion, he could find that soothing silence.
Tomlin pitched the game of his life on Friday night, on baseball's grand stage, at the sport's hallowed grounds, in front of some starved fans. And he did it with his father -- paralyzed from the chest down since mid-August -- watching from the stands.
Jerry Tomlin suffered an arteriovenous malformation, a tangle of blood vessels on his spinal cord, which required emergency surgery.