While most people wouldn’t think of flushing someone’s ashes down a toilet as an honor, one New York Mets fan is doing it as the perfect tribute to his friend.
Tom McDonald told the New York Times he vowed to spread his friend Roy Riegel’s ashes at ballparks across the U.S. after his death in 2008, as the two grew up a block away from each other in Queens and attended countless Mets games together at Shea Stadium. But after an incident at PNC Park in Pittsburgh where Riegel’s ashes blew away before McDonald could spread them, McDonald came up with his toilet plan.
Because as it turns out, Riegel was a plumber by trade.
“I know people might think it’s weird, and if it were anyone else’s ashes, I’d agree,” McDonald told the Times. “But for Roy, this is the perfect tribute to a plumber and a baseball fan and just a brilliant, wild guy.”
McDonald has a method to his madness, though. He often multitasks by flushing Riegel’s ashes whenever he has to use the bathroom, but there are rules.
“The game has to be in progress — that’s a rule of mine,” McDonald said, adding, “I always flush in between, though. That’s another rule of mine.”
Riegel lives on at 16 stadiums in all different cities, including Atlanta, St. Louis, Kansas City, Mo., Toronto, Detroit, Cincinnati, Baltimore and Cleveland. McDonald has enough to flush Riegel at one more park, and it’s going to be at Durham Athletic Park, the former minor league stadium where “Bull Durham” was filmed.
Riegel’s youngest brother is a fan of McDonald’s ritual, too.
“He’d be like, ‘Oh, yeah, do that,’” Hank Riegel told the Times. “He would definitely approve of it. Never once did Roy follow the rules.”
Thumbnail photo via Brad Penner/USA TODAY Sports Images
