After David Denson left home more than two years ago to embark on a career as a professional baseball player, he and his mother, Felisa Gomez, began a nearly daily ritual. No matter where he went, traveling from one small town to another, Denson found time to phone his mother.
Gomez wanted him to know that he could talk to her about anything, a promise she made to her son long ago. There would be no judgment or recriminations.
Increasingly, though, she became concerned.
The joy of chasing his dream, which led him to turn down a scholarship to the University of Hawaii, seemed to be dissolving.