Editor’s Note: This story was included in The Athletic’s Best of 2020. View the full list.
He wasn’t supposed to be there. None of the Yankees were, for a random Tuesday workout preceding a makeshift series in Baltimore. But what is life if not a series of seemingly meaningless moments leading up to ones that take your breath away?
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It was, Zack Britton thought as he looked up at the sky, one of the most unusual things he had ever seen, a beautiful, otherworldly mix of purple and orange. Britton, who was drafted by the Orioles and spent eight years in Baltimore, told the other Yankees pitchers in the outfield with him that he had never seen the horizon over Camden Yards look like that.
He jogged inside, still thinking about the sky. He grabbed his phone to see a message that brought him to his knees: Mo Gaba, the blind and beloved Orioles and Ravens superfan, who inspired countless Baltimoreans with his positivity and spirit as his body was ravaged by cancer, had died earlier in the evening on July 28. He was just 14 years old.
Britton saw something else on his phone, too. A Yankees PR official had captured a picture of the sky, that same wondrous sight from a few minutes ago, and posted it on Twitter. He immediately texted the photographer, Michael Margolis, because he had to know: When was that taken?
In the 7 p.m hour, just after Mo died at his mother Sonsy’s home in Glen Burnie, Md.
On the night of Mo Gaba’s death, the sky reflected the team colors of his favorite teams — the Ravens and Orioles — during a Yankees workout at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. (Courtesy of Zack Britton)“I was like, ‘Holy shit,’” said Britton, who immediately sent the sunset photo and the story to his former teammate and current Orioles slugger Trey Mancini. “Whatever you believe in, I don’t know. Sometimes there’s just signs that something bigger happened. That he’s in a better place, maybe that was the sign for me.”
Maybe you believe in heaven; maybe you don’t. Mancini, days later, still gets goosebumps thinking about that call. The little boy who could not see the sunset had painted the most beautiful one, purple and orange, the color of his two favorite teams.
“It was incredible,” Mancini said, “like Mo was already watching over us.”
Britton had the sunset picture framed and sent to Sonsy. The Yankees jersey, the one he had made this offseason just for Mo adorned with his favorite number six, went with it. Britton had planned on giving it to Mo when the Yankees traveled to Baltimore, the next time he would see Mo light up at the sound of his voice and remind the lefty he couldn’t cheer against his favorite team. That moment will never happen, and he’s choked up now just thinking about it.
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“Maybe his purpose here was to spread as much goodwill and touch as many people as possible,” Britton said, “but it just doesn’t seem fair.”
Isn’t that the cruelest part about life? We always wish there was more time.
Former Orioles closer Zack Britton wanted to give this jersey of his current team to Mo Gaba, but unfortunately, the teenager died before he had the opportunity. (Courtesy of Zack Britton)Mossila Gaba – almost everyone called him Mo – spent 75 percent of his young life in a hospital. He lost his sight when he was 9 months old, and he needed a wheelchair to get around. He battled cancer four times and was told in June that he probably had only 10 or 12 weeks to live. Nobody, though, was going to sell Mo short. Nothing had silenced that booming laugh and unbridled enthusiasm before.
“I knew he got a bad diagnosis, but it’s Mo,” said Jeremy Conn, a radio talk show host at 105.7 The Fan in Baltimore who became extremely close with the boy. Conn, like everyone else in this story, was devastated by Mo’s death, speaking after he attended his funeral last week. “Everybody was praying for a miracle. He’s beaten it before. Maybe, he’ll beat it again.”
Mo’s death inspired tributes from Baltimore sports heroes, past and present. Jim Palmer, Ray Lewis, Adam Jones, Manny Machado and Lamar Jackson were among those touched by Mo, but it didn’t end there. Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta shared a “powerful” embrace with Mo at a Baltimore practice last year and was so moved by the moment that he has a picture of it prominently displayed in his office.
“You felt special being around him,” DeCosta said last week. “He was a gift to Baltimore, to Maryland, really to everyone. Mo’s strength, resiliency, passion and humility will impact me for the rest of my life.”
Perhaps like no fan before him, Mo captured the attention and admiration of celebrated athletes and everyday Baltimoreans, inspiring a city-wide catchphrase of #MoStrong and getting recognized in two Hall of Fames.
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It all started five years ago with an afternoon call into a drive-time sports radio show.
Conn has done sports radio for 20 years and learned long ago that you never know what you’re going to get when a kid calls in. Sometimes they get stage fright and freeze. Other times they forget to turn the radio down and their voice is inaudible. Mo was different. He spoke with an assuredness of that night’s “Pick to Click” prediction. His exuberance jumped through the airwaves. And oh, that laugh.
“His laugh was so infectious,” said longtime Baltimore TV and radio personality Scott Garceau, who co-hosted the show with Conn. “Man, I’ll hear that laugh the rest of my life, just that happiness in his voice.”
Mo became a fixture on Garceau’s and Conn’s show, without the knowledge of his mother, who worked in the afternoons and had no idea her son called in after school. Still, the story of the boy behind the voice remained a mystery. That was until Conn was talking at the radio station about a 9-year-old caller named Mo and a promotions director overheard him.
“You mean Mo Gaba?” he asked.
Conn didn’t know Mo’s last name and he certainly wasn’t aware the kid was blind and had battled cancer nearly his entire life. Conn was skeptical they were talking about the same person until he was shown a video of Mo from a cancer fundraiser. That voice was unmistakable and seemed unburdened from years of medical challenges and uncertainty.
Sonsy first realized something might be wrong with her young son when she noticed that he had an odd whiteness in his eyes in family pictures. It was later discovered that he had bilateral retinoblastoma, a rare form of cancer in the retina. It cost Mo his vision, and that, unfortunately, was just the start of it.
“It’s a genetic mutation,” Sonsy said. “Usually the retinoblastoma is in one eye. For Mo, it was in both. The fact that it was in both, it was in his genes, too. We could treat it, and (the cancer) could come back anywhere, whenever.”
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Over the years, cancer spread to Mo’s neck, sinuses, lymph nodes, legs and then lungs. He had surgeries, transplants, radiation and chemotherapy at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in downtown Baltimore.
“This cancer was so unpredictable, it could have happened anywhere, but it didn’t help that he had radiation to his eye,” Sonsy said. “The chances of it returning (someday) in his brain, I don’t think we were surprised.”
As serious as Mo’s condition was, neither Conn nor Garceau could remember a time when Mo sounded discouraged. He was a bundle of energy and positivity, and he won over even Garceau’s and Conn’s most hardened callers, like Bob in Parkville, who loved to go on rants. Bob adored Mo. Everywhere Garceau and Conn went, they were asked more about Mo than the Orioles’ rebuild or the Ravens’ Super Bowl chances.
“I don’t mean for this to come across the wrong way, but I don’t know if being blind led him to see the world in a different light,” Conn said. “He was always so positive.”
Garceau and Conn visited Mo’s elementary school after he sent an invitation in Braille to the radio station. Garceau was ready with the Abbott and Costello Who’s on First bit, but it wasn’t long before Mo seized the microphone and never gave it back.
“I’d always say he had the gift of Gaba,” Conn said. “He definitely was a showman. As soon as he could feel the mic and knew that he was on, he’d shine bright.”
At first, Mo wanted to become a doctor. Then, he wanted to be a sports talk show host. If he only had more time, nobody doubted that’s exactly what he would become.
The love for Baltimore sports was passed down by Sonsy – “It was always purple and orange in our house,” she said – and Mo took his fandom seriously. Hosting a special “The Big Mo Show” alongside Conn on July 2, Mo was speaking to Ravens coach John Harbaugh, and the team’s shocking playoff loss in January to the Tennessee Titans inevitably came up. Mo said the Titans just seemed “more prepared” than the Ravens, an unintended jab at Harbaugh. It would have been awkward and probably drawn a Harbaugh rebuke if it had been anybody but Mo who said it.
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At the Orioles’ annual FanFest in January 2017, Mo interviewed Jones and Machado. Days after his 11th birthday, he told Machado – who had received a four-game suspension in 2016 for charging the mound and fighting Kansas City reliever Yordano Ventura – “I want to see you hit more home runs and not get suspended.” Machado’s jaw dropped. The crowd roared with laughter.
“If Mo was in my office, I always hoped we had won the night before, OK?” said former Orioles manager Buck Showalter, who grew to appreciate Mo’s bluntness in asking about batting Jones leadoff or giving Britton more rest.
“Here was a kid that couldn’t see, but saw as well as anybody,” Showalter said. “You wanted to be more like him.”
By the time Mo threw out the first pitch at an Orioles-Yankees game in 2017, fans in the crowd were yelling his name. Mo beamed even though he initially thought that he’d be throwing the first pitch of the game to Yankees leadoff hitter Jacoby Ellsbury.
Mo Gaba read the Baltimore Ravens pick from a braille card on Day 3 of the NFL Draft in 2019. (Gregory Payan / Associated Press)In 2018, the Orioles became the first professional U.S. sports team to wear Braille-lettered uniforms during a game. Last year, Gaba became the first person to announce an NFL draft pick written in Braille, calling out the Ravens’ fourth-round selection of offensive lineman Ben Powers. Several months later, Mo came to a Ravens practice, called a play in the huddle that resulted in a Jackson touchdown pass and then met Powers.
“The enthusiasm he had when he said my name was so special,” Powers said. “The positivity that Mo was able to have on life is something that every person could take a lesson from. It’s a lesson that will stick with me for the rest of my life.”
Mo’s profile was expanding internationally, too.
“I was reading cards to him from Kenya,” said Lynn Leitch, a teaching assistant for the visually impaired who became one of Mo’s closest confidants. “He goes, ‘Wow, that’s on the other side of the world.’ He was starting to get how big he was getting.”
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When Mo graduated from middle school this summer, the community threw a parade in his neighborhood. Police officers were needed to control the heavy volume of traffic. When Mo heard a news helicopter overhead, he proclaimed, “I’m the most wanted man in America.”
About a month after Mo’s graduation, Mancini stopped by his house again to watch “SpongeBob SquarePants” and play Mortal Kombat, a video game at which Mo excelled against people with full vision. Mancini, who is undergoing chemotherapy for Stage 3 colon cancer, credits Gaba for his positive outlook.
“I’m always going to carry his memory and lessons he taught me,” Mancini said, “and make sure I live my life in a way Mo would be proud of.”
The Orioles outfielder spent his All-Star break in 2018 with Mo, taking him to Dave & Buster’s for a visit Mancini believes helped him get out of an offensive slump. But it was the call Mancini received in March, after he underwent surgery to remove the cancerous tumor, that blew him away. Here was a boy, much sicker than Mancini, who was calling and reassuring him.
Mancini wanted to visit Mo again the weekend before he died. He had been texting with Sonsy, but Mo was in the hospital, already too sick. Mancini has thought about that weekend a lot. Though he’ll always cherish their time and special day together, Mancini wishes he had seen him once more to say goodbye.
We always wish there was more time.
On Feb. 7, 2020, at 8:20 a.m., “Lynx Pride Sports Talk with Mo” debuted after Mo sent an email to Lindale Middle School’s principal asking to be part of the morning announcements. It was Leitch, a non-sports fan who had learned enough in the six years she’d been around Mo, who told him every good radio host has a signature sign-off. It only took a moment for Mo to blurt out, “Make every day a win!” It was, after all, how he lived his short life.
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“He was the light that this world needed. Even in the darkest of times, he never let anything get to him. He never wanted anyone to be unhappy,” said Leitch, who affectionately called him Big Guy. “If more people could take that mentality, if everyone could take a little bit of Mo and put it in their day, this world could be a better place.”
Mo, who often attended school remotely because he was too sick, did several shows before schools closed due to COVID-19. Then on June 10, Mo got the worst possible news. The cancer had spread to his brain. There was nothing more doctors could do. Active treatment stopped. Sonsy asked for prayers. When he learned of the diagnosis and that he had less than three months to live, Mo turned to Sonsy and said three things.
“The first one was, ‘There’s going to be so many people who are going to be disappointed.’ He didn’t want to let anyone down,” Conn said. “And then he apologized to his mom because he didn’t want to leave her alone. And the last thing he said was, ‘I don’t understand. I’ve been taking medicine my whole life. How come it won’t work for me?’”
What is more heartbreaking, to explain to a young boy there is no more medicine or to sob for the kind of soul that thinks of his mother and other people first even as he’s delivered a death sentence?
Honorary captain Mo Gaba walks, with his mother, Sonsy, off the field after the coin toss prior to a Ravens’ home game. (Evan Habeeb / USA Today)It was typical Mo. When Ravens offensive lineman Bradley Bozeman presented him with a #MoStrong Ravens game ball at his graduation, Mo held it aloft and said that it was for his mother.
“I don’t think there was a dry eye there,” Bozeman said.
When he’d hear another kid crying in the hallway at school or at the hospital, he’d demand to be wheeled over to them so he could make them feel better. Garceau took his four grandchildren to an Orioles game a few years ago and ran into Mo and his mother. Mo asked Garceau if he could hold his youngest grandchild, who was only a few months old. The image of Mo, stricken in a wheelchair but smiling widely while holding the infant, caused Garceau to choke up and step away.
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People who spent time with Mo say feeling him grabbing and clutching your hand or arm was like an out-of-body experience.
“You just feel so at home and at peace,” Bozeman said. “Mo’s vision was taken away from him when he was very young, but I think he had the best vision of anybody that I’ve ever known. He saw the light when it was all darkness.”
Knowing in June that Mo was given weeks to live, his friends and family members tried to make the time as special as possible. Machado, Robert Downey Jr. and the voices of “SpongeBob SquarePants” left him video messages. Wrestling superstar Stone Cold Steve Austin called Mo several times. Conn went over to visit Mo and play video games nearly every day for two months. National radio host Damon Amendolara, who also got to know Mo through his call-ins, traveled to Baltimore to spend the day with him.
The Big Mo Show on July 2 was supposed to end at 9 p.m., but it ended up lasting until 10:30. It went “MO-vertime” as the show’s young host put it with guests, including Lewis, Torrey Smith, Showalter and WWE superstar Roman Reigns calling in. Conn, who conjured up the idea to give Mo his own show for the night and for 105.7 The Fan to sign him to a ceremonial contract, believes he’s never been part of a better show. Even after it ended, calls and texts to the station kept flooding in.
If only there was more time.
Mo’s final days forever cemented him in Ravens and Orioles lore; a sliver of solace in the brutally unfair game of life. First, Mo and Sonsy found out that Powers’ Draft card is going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which was officially announced July 29.
On Monday, July 27, the last full day of Mo’s life, he was too weak to read the Braille card from the Orioles, who inducted him into the team’s Hall of Fame as the second-ever recipient of the Wild Bill Hagy Award, which honors fans. Mo was struggling to have the energy to speak, but hearing Sonsy and Leitch sniffle, he summoned enough to yell, “I said enough tears!” When Leitch read the news, Mo squeezed her arm and told her he liked it. The Orioles’ official announcement came hours before Mo’s death.
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Mo didn’t talk about dying, but it was obvious at the end he wasn’t doing well. Only Sonsy and Leitch got to see the rare instances when he was sad or irritated. The food that Conn brought over frequently went uneaten. Mo often told his mother he was tired and on the morning of July 28, his words took an uncharacteristically serious tone.
“The day he passed away, that morning, he said, ‘Mom I apologize for everything. I can’t do this anymore,’” Sonsy said. “He’d been fighting for 13 years of his life. I knew he was tired. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.”
Hours later, Mo lay next to his mother on her bed and took his last breath. That night, she wrote a message on Facebook, saying, “I lost my best friend today. (Your) legacy will live on lovebug.”
Leitch, who was at Mo’s home, struggles to compose herself now as she thinks about her Big Guy’s final moments. Mo’s friends and family tried to honor his wishes not to cry, but it was impossible. Upon getting the news that Mo died, Conn ended his radio show with two hours remaining and rushed to Sonsy’s home to say goodbye.
“He was still in his mom’s bed. I held his hand and tried to tell him, as trivial as it may seem, how I felt about him,” Conn said. “I didn’t get to have that last conversation I was hoping to have.’
If only there were more time. But if there was, would we have listened so carefully to his message?
“Mo was that constant reminder,” Britton said, “that you can make the most out of an awful situation.”
His life inspired cities and counties to don #MoStrong apparel, bars and restaurants to host fundraisers to help Sonsy pay for his medical care and radio listeners to chip in, too. What kind of kid changes Harbaugh’s and Showalter’s mindset after a loss or helps Mancini’s outlook during chemo treatments?
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“He had the ability to really bring the whole city together,” Mancini said. “He’s seen as a hero to a lot of people.”
Conn’s phone got more than a thousand text messages the night Mo died. The funeral home was inundated with calls after information about his private viewing leaked out. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan tweeted condolences.
“His spirit made you the happiest it could possibly be,” said Jones, who kept in touch with Mo and Sonsy even after he signed to play baseball in Japan. “I’m glad he’s finally going to get to see his teams play now.”
Maybe you believe in heaven, or some kind of afterlife, maybe you don’t. Maybe you believe the beautiful sunset that night was just that. But no one who knew Mo did.
“I was sitting outside with my family, and I said to my brother, ‘Look at that sky. You all see the purple and orange, right?’” Sonsy said. “We were like, ‘That’s Mo.’”
Bringing one more smile to everyone.
(Top photo of Adam Jones and Mo Gaba: Mark Goldman / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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