Honest, sincere, down to earth and humble are some of the words Samantha Ramsay used to describe her husband, Rob Ramsay.
Rob, 42, died from a seizure Aug. 4, leaving behind his wife, Samantha, and two sons - Ryan, 11, and Reidar, 8.
Rob's funeral is at 11 a.m. today at Short's Funeral Chapel in Moscow, and a reception will follow at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Moscow.
"It's easy to say that he was valued and loved by all, and he's the kind of person that even before we met in college, people loved him," said Samantha, a University of Idaho food and nutrition professor. "He was a good guy."
Rob, born in Vancouver, Wash., was a left-handed pitcher for Washington State University and pitched in the Boston Red Sox, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres and Baltimore Orioles organizations. The Red Sox drafted him in the seventh round of the 1996 draft.
After the draft, he returned to WSU to finish his degree, which is when he met Samantha.
"Pretty much we fell in love," she said.
Samantha, who is from Coeur d'Alene, had played volleyball at Penn State University for two and a half years before transferring to WSU for her final two and a half years of volleyball.
Rob made his major league debut in August 1999 with the Mariners at Yankee Stadium.
"It was pretty crazy," Samantha said. "It was like his dream. He always imagined being there and there he was. That's probably when I realized this is a big deal."
Samantha said Rob never tried to impress anybody, but was a tennis shoes, jeans and a polo shirt kind of guy.
She said when he was called up to the Mariners from the minors, manager Lou Piniella came up to Rob in a hotel lobby and said, "'Son, you can't wear tennis shoes in the lobby. You need to get better clothes. You're going to be in the big leagues, you need to wear better clothes.' "
Samantha said the Padres signed Rob in the fall of 2001, but that October he began to get bad headaches.
An MRI in January 2002 found a baseball-sized mass in his brain, Samantha said. Rob had a brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme. She said he had surgery that month to remove the mass.
"The first thing he said when he was diagnosed is he's like, 'Get it out so I can play,' " Samantha said.
Ramsay underwent treatment and did not attend 2002 spring training with the Padres. In May 2002, another tumor formed. Samantha said a reoccurrence with glioblastoma multiforme is essentially a death sentence.
But Rob battled through it. More misfortune came when a blood clot was discovered a few months later in August, which almost killed him because of swelling in his brain, Samantha said.
Rob had his second craniotomy in November 2002 to remove the blood clot. That month, Rob received good news after a biopsy showed no traces of cancer. Still, he continued chemotherapy. The Padres invited him to spring training in 2003. Samantha said he pitched a clean inning, but he was not the same.
She said he received chemotherapy until July while still playing in the Padres' minor league system. Because he was not progressing on the mound, the Padres let him go. The Orioles signed him that fall. Samantha praised the Mariners and Padres organizations for their support.
But, then there were three consecutive full-body seizures in April 2004.
Samantha said Rob was essentially a traumatic brain injury patient.
"Any neurologist we went to would look at his scans and go, 'You shouldn't be walking, you shouldn't be talking, you shouldn't be able to hold a really context-driven conversation. You're a walking phenomenon. You're a miracle,' " Samantha said.
Rob decided it was best to retire from baseball, Samantha said.
Rob and Samantha moved to Coeur d'Alene after Rob retired. Samantha immediately went to work, while Rob eventually coached baseball and taught for several years at Lake City High School.
Even though Rob had been a pro baseball player, it wasn't what defined him.
"Whether you were an athlete or not, he treated everybody with respect and kindness," Samantha said. "And you don't meet a lot of people that way, especially in this day and age where everybody gets all excited about celebrities and superstars and great athletes. He didn't care about that."
Samantha recalled a conversation that expressed Rob's desire to be an average Joe.
" 'I don't envy Ken Griffey (or) Alex Rodriguez,' " Samantha said Rob told her once. "He goes, 'I want to go out to lunch with my wife, eat a meal and not be interrupted.' He said, 'I don't want that fame. I just want to play baseball. I want my family and that's it. People can have that other stuff.' "
Samantha said they had dated for about two weeks when a friend told her he was a pro baseball player with the Red Sox organization; he hadn't.
"He didn't announce how great and talented he was," she said. "He just was him."
"I've never met a guy who loved his wife as much as Rob loved Samantha," said Shawn O'Neal, one of Rob's friends, a longtime journalist and University of Idaho journalism adviser and faculty member.
Samantha has been a UI professor since 2010. Samantha commuted for two years from Coeur d'Alene until the family decided to move to Moscow. Since then, Rob has stayed home with his two sons. Samantha said their children were everything to Rob.
O'Neal said he knew of Rob and Samantha when they went to WSU at the same time. But O'Neal said they became friends after the Ramsays moved to Moscow in 2012.
The two men coached Rob's son, Ryan, and O'Neal's son, Jack, in baseball and basketball, since the two boys were similar ages.
Rob was always joking around with his players, and they loved that, O'Neal said. Rob was able to connect with children and get the most out of the ones who were not the best athletes.
O'Neal said he called Rob "Big League" and Rob called O'Neal "Paparazzi" because of his journalism background.
"Even though time was so short with him, 17 years is a gift to me, and it's even a greater blessing that I have his legacy and these two boys," Samantha said.
Garrett Cabeza can be reached at (208) 883-4631, or by email to gcabeza@dnews.com.
