Group helping ill boy see Yankees game

DEXTER – If a Dover-Foxcroft man and his friends have their way, a local boy struggling with brain stem glioma will attend a New York Yankees game next month.

The team is tops with Tyler Wintle, 10, who has tried his best to stay ahead of a disease by undergoing steroids, radiation and chemotherapy, all of which have zapped his strength, affected his eyesight and now has robbed him of his hearing.

Despite his failing health, the young man was delighted to learn recently that Burke Soileau of Dover-Foxcroft and his friends at the Knights of Columbus in Dexter are raising funds to send him, his parents, Sandy and Scott Wintle, and his friend, Jared MacDonald, to a New York Yankees ballgame next month.

That news came just days before a recent magnetic resonance imaging showed inflammation of the tumor on Tyler’s brain stem, which will result in more chemotherapy.

The game is so important to Tyler that his treatments will be scheduled to allow his attendance at the game, Sandy Wintle said Tuesday.

“Burke is so great, he just seems to really want Tyler to have this,” Sandy Wintle said.

Touched by a Bangor Daily News story published last year about Tyler’s plight, Soileau had a friend who works with the baseball team send him some autographed memorabilia that he presented in April to the sick little boy.

“He worships baseball,” Soileau said of Tyler. Soileau was touched by the boy’s zest for life despite his hardships.

Soileau said he wanted to do something else for Tyler while he could enjoy it. He contacted his friends at the baseball team last month and managed to get tickets to a game in mid-June. Team officials also said they would pick up Tyler, his family and friend at the airport and take them to the stadium.

The Dover-Foxcroft man then approached fellow members of the Dexter club and asked for their help in raising funds for the airplane tickets and lodging. At that meeting, members fished more than $200 from their pockets for the project, Soileau said. He figures that the group must raise in excess of $1,500 for the trip.

Anyone who wants to donate to the cause can mail contributions to Tyler’s Yankee Trip, in care of Richard Bilodeau, 280 Garland Road, Dexter 04930.