Hintzsche reflects on heartwarming moment at Wrigley

Rochelle resident seeks positivity after Facebook post goes viral

Russell Hodges
Posted 10/12/17

The kindness of the brothers led Hintzsche to share her experience on Facebook after the game. Hintzsche posted two photos of the brothers and told her story to friends and family, but to Hintzsche’s amazement, the Facebook post began going viral, generating over 10,000 reactions, 2,400 shares and 1,100 comments to date.

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Hintzsche reflects on heartwarming moment at Wrigley

Rochelle resident seeks positivity after Facebook post goes viral

Posted

Life’s short, so buy the tickets.

That’s what ran through the mind of Rochelle resident Lauren Hinkston Hintzsche when she and her husband John Hintzsche purchased bleacher seats for Game 3 of the National League Division Series between the Washington Nationals and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. A retired teacher and lifelong Cubs fan who currently works at Anytime Fitness, Hintzsche had nothing more on her mind than to enjoy her first playoff game ever at her favorite ballpark.

“We farm, and we should have been in the field that day, but I told John that I’d find somebody else to work,” Hintzsche said. “I’ve always followed the Cubs, even as a little kid. I was a tomboy and I played ball with all the other kids in my neighborhood. We always had games going.”

Hintzsche and her husband bought the tickets on Sunday, and the couple traveled to Wrigley Field on Monday. With over 40,000 fans in attendance for Game 3, the atmosphere was perfect for Hintzsche, who said she prefers watching from Wrigley’s Budweiser Bleachers.

“We always try to sit in the bleachers because they’re so much fun,” she said. “We meet so many new people and everybody acts like one big, happy family out there… We love right field because you can see the scoreboard and you can catch some of the plays on the Jumbotron, but we ended up in left field really close to the foul line. We could pretty much reach out and touch the foul pole.”

While the Cubs and Nationals fought for the series advantage on the field, Hintzsche mingled with some of the fans sitting around her including two strangers named Mike and Bobby Amato. The strangers each wore gray Cubs jerseys, with one wearing a gray Cubs hat and the other sporting a blue Cubs cap. Hintzsche learned more about the two fans as the game progressed, discovering that the two were brothers and that they each lived in nearly opposite corners of the country.

“They just looked like fun-loving guys,” Hintzsche said. “As time went on I found out they were brothers and that one of them was from San Diego and the other lived in Chicago. One of the brothers was trying to convince the other brother to go to the Bears game… I leaned over and told them that life’s short, so buy the tickets.”

But the cheerful nature of the two gentlemen wasn’t what caught Hintzsche’s attention. Rather, it was the attention the Amato brothers gave to two elderly fans named Dan and Micki Isacksen sitting behind them in the bleachers. The brothers routinely helped Dan stand up when fans rose to their feet, and the brothers also sat down in front of Dan so he could get a better view of the game.

What initially seemed like a simple gesture of kindness quickly became a heartwarming display of affection for Hintzsche, who realized that Dan had been going through chemotherapy after talking with his wife Micki.

“His wife sat next to me and the gentlemen sat on the other side,” Hintzsche said. “As the game went on… I asked her to let us know if we could be of any help. Those brothers, I could see them turning around and one of them offered to help him up when everybody else was standing. They were super attentive to him.”

The Cubs defeated Washington 2-1, but the real challenge began after the victory, when Hintzsche and her husband prepared to leave the bleachers. With thousands of fans heading for the exits, she wondered how the Isacksens would be able to escape the traffic. Once again, Mike and Bobby Amato answered the call.

“Right away, they said to Dan, ‘We got you,’” Hintzsche said. “One of them led the way and the other was in the back and they walked him up the stairs.”

The kindness of the brothers led Hintzsche to share her experience on Facebook after the game. Hintzsche posted two photos of the brothers and told her story to friends and family, but to Hintzsche’s amazement, the Facebook post began going viral, generating over 10,000 reactions, 2,400 shares and 1,100 comments to date.

“We took the train home and I thought I would post something so my friends and family could see it,” she said. “I got a text the next morning from somebody I don’t even know… I don’t even know what viral means, but now I do. I looked at the post and saw all the likes and shares. To me it was a simple post… It just kept going and going.”

Local news networks such as FOX and WGN also picked up Hintzsche’s story, and Hintzsche said she received over 400 Facebook friend requests, mostly from people she didn’t know. But while Hintzsche was appreciative of the attention her post garnered, she admitted she was partially taken back due to privacy concerns and how news outlets were interpreting her story.

And even though Hintzsche said she didn’t plan on her post spreading across social media, she said she hopes people read her story as one thing: a random act of kindness by two generous brothers.

“I found out the names of the people at the game and I reached out to them and said that I didn’t mean to invade their privacy by any means,” she said. “There have been so many negative things going on right now with kneeling for the national anthem at football games, the hurricanes and the mass shootings… There’s good things going on in the world and we need to focus on those, not the bad things. There’s always good people in the world.”