The week's good news: September 6, 2018

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1. Father-daughter duo spends summer visiting every MLB ballpark
2. High school football team in Texas finally snaps 77-game losing streak
3. Young doctor reunited with nurse who helped save his life 28 years ago
4. Stolen ruby slippers worn in The Wizard of Oz found after 13 years
5. Adopted man reunites birth parents, officiates their wedding

published 6 September 2018

1. Father-daughter duo spends summer visiting every MLB ballpark

Emily Thompson may not be the world's biggest baseball fan, but she does love her dad, and that's why she spent the summer traveling 13,000 miles with him in a quest to visit all 30 Major League Baseball parks. Danny Thompson recently had a heart attack, and Emily knew she wanted to take him on some sort of an adventure. "My main goal was to spend time with him," she told KGO-TV. He used to always talk about seeing all the ballparks, Emily said, so she planned a trip around that dream, with Danny choosing AT&T Park in San Francisco as the final stop for sentimental reasons. "I used to go to Candlestick Park with my dad, and the Giants were my favorite team," he said of the old stadium. Danny told KGO-TV he and Emily are now closer than ever. "It was a good bonding experience," he said.

Every win is celebrated, but when it's a team's first win in eight years, that makes the victory even more special. Last Thursday, the football teams from Diamond Hill-Jarvis High School in Fort Worth, Texas, and Conrad High School in Dallas faced off, and when Diamond Hill-Jarvis was leading 16-0 at halftime, coach Oscar Castillo warned the players not to get too excited. They had a good reason to be hopeful, though — the last time the Eagles won was on Sept. 18, 2010. They held on, and were victorious, defeating Conrad 40-12. This win ended the team's 77-game losing streak, just shy of the Texas record of 80 consecutive losses set by Houston's Davis High School. Castillo told the Star-Telegram he is "just proud of these boys," and urged the team to take their win and use it as a foundation for future victories.

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Vilma Wong, a pediatric nurse in Palo Alto, California, recognized the last name of a young doctor who arrived in the neonatal intensive care unit last month, and was "overjoyed" when she realized he was a former patient. After being introduced to Brandon Seminatore, Wong asked if he was from the area; when he told her he was actually born in the building, Wong realized she had taken care of him 28 years earlier when Seminatore was born prematurely and spent 40 days in the hospital. Seminatore had been told about the dedicated nurses who cared for him in 1990, and he texted his parents to tell them about the discovery. In response, he received a photo of him as an infant, sitting with Wong in the NICU. Wong told The Mercury News this reunion illustrates why she loves her job. "As a nurse," she said, "it's kind of like your reward."

There's no place like home, indeed. More than a decade after being stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, a pair of ruby slippers the star wore in The Wizard of Oz have been recovered as part of an undercover operation. The shoes, worth several million dollars, were stolen in 2005. Collector Michael Shaw originally lent the slippers to the museum, which is located in Judy Garland's hometown, and he declined to have them placed in a safe. Whoever stole them did so by breaking in through the window and shattering the glass display case. The FBI announced the discovery on Tuesday, but said the investigation into who stole the shoes remains ongoing. "We reached the first goal — the recovery — and it's a great day," North Dakota United States Attorney Christopher Myers said. "But we're not done."

Michele Newman and Dave Lindgren started dating while in high school, and had a son they placed up for adoption. Then they lost touch for more than 30 years. A few weeks ago, the two married — with their biological son, Martin Schmidt, officiating. Schmidt contacted them individually four years ago, speaking to Newman first. Newman hadn't talked to Lindgren since her pregnancy, but thought her newfound relationship with Schmidt merited a message to her high school sweetheart. Lindgren also got to know Schmidt, and began speaking to Newman daily, and romance blossomed. Schmidt could tell there was "definitely something happening," and he eventually served as their wedding officiant. "I never thought in a million years this would happen," he told The New York Times.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.