This story was excerpted from Alex Stumpf’s Pirates Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
PITTSBURGH -- Riley Wheaton is a baseball player, regardless of the health challenges life has presented him. Even when the 9-year-old was in the hospital with tubes in his chest, he was still swinging away with a toy bat and ball.
On Tuesday, Riley got to hang out with one of baseball’s best pitchers in one of baseball’s best stadiums. Now in remission after several very challenging months, the Pirates, Paul Skenes and the Make-A-Wish Foundation teamed up to give him a day to remember.
“Paul Skenes is a really fast pitcher, and he’s my favorite player,” Riley said. “He was really nice.”
In October 2024, Riley was life-flighted to Boston Children’s Hospital after being found in complete heart failure. He was diagnosed with myocarditis and needed five chest tubes in four months to remove fluid from around his heart and lungs. In January, a biopsy from his pericardium came back positive for angiosarcoma, which oncologists described as rare, aggressive and terminal.
After six rounds of chemotherapy, imaging revealed that Riley was in remission. His heart function is currently back to normal, too, allowing him to return to the baseball diamond. A few weeks after his last round of chemo, he toed the rubber again for his 10-and-under travel team and struck out 10 over four scoreless innings.
After a performance like that, who better to meet than Skenes, one of the Major League game’s great strikeout artists.
The two had a full day pregame Tuesday. Skenes took the family around the ballpark and through the home clubhouse and introduced him to his teammates. They made a trip to the bullpen, where Riley got to throw to the former college catcher and have his pitches tracked with the team’s technology.
"He throws hard,” Skenes said. “Everything he's dealt with or not, he throws hard for a 9-year-old. I'm not kidding when I say by the end of it, my hand was a little sore."
Afterward, Riley did what all starting pitchers do after their bullpen day: Shag batting practice. (He said he wasn’t going to get in front of an Oneil Cruz liner, though.) Riley then retired to his personal locker next to the clubhouse to prepare for his ceremonial first pitch, which Skenes caught.
It wasn’t lost on Skenes that Riley could have wished for anything, saying it was “super humbling for a kid to want to do that.” Both sides wanted to make sure it was a day to remember.
“You could tell that he read his story and he was invested in this moment,” Riley’s mother, Kristina, said. “He really took the time to be with him and make this the best day ever. Just felt like being around an old friend.”
"When I was 9, I was not worried about any of the stuff he's worried about or that his parents and brother are worried about,” Skenes said. “We all get dealt adversity in some ways. His is just a lot greater and a lot sooner than a lot of us deal with. It's just very different. He's probably a stronger person than I am."
Even after everything he has been through in the past year, Riley is still very much a kid. When Kristina was on the verge of tearing up, Riley rolled his eyes and threw a travel package of tissues on her lap.
He’s a ballplayer, and he’s got a pretty famous fan on the Pirates now.
“His nickname is the GOAT,” Kristina said. “His buddy nicknamed him the mini-GOAT and got him a little trophy when he was in the hospital. It’s got a dual meeting for him. It’s ‘God Over All Things,’ and that is truly what has gotten him to where he is.
“I don’t think it’s going to hit us until maybe next week. All of this and soaking it all in. We are just so appreciative.”