He even flushed Riegel’s ashes in the toilet of his hotel room inside the Rogers Center in Toronto. “Right there, it hit me,” Mr. McDonald said. “After that, it just took on a life of its own.” 
 
 In the years that followed, he — often with Mr. Boneker — flushed ashes in stadiums in Arizona, Atlanta, St. Louis, Kansas City, Mo., Toronto, Detroit, Cincinnati, Baltimore and elsewhere. Photo 
 
 In Cleveland, Mr. Riegel’s ashes were flushed at both Progressive Field and at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, because Mr. Riegel was a devout rocker. In Chicago, Mr. McDonald flushed them at a White Sox game but not at a game of the Cubs, the Mets’ old National League nemesis. “It’s funny — not in a joke way — but funny that it was exactly like Roy would have wanted it,’’ Mr. McDonald said.  NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City man is on a mission to flush the cremated remains of his lifelong friend — a plumber — down ballpark toilets around the country. “It became kind of an inside joke: What’s the best place for Roy’s ashes?” said Mr. McDonald, whose friendship with Mr. Riegel stretched back to Pack 65 of the Cub Scouts and through adulthood as the fun moved into local bars. Mr. Riegel was “a major partyer,” Mr. McDonald said, and “walked that tightrope between genius and insanity.” 
 
 The fast life caught up with him, and he died at age 48 on April 8, 2008, the day of the home opener of the Mets’ final season at Shea.
– "I went to the bathroom, and I was like, I know what to do," Tom McDonald tells the New York Daily News. Roy Riegel, McDonald's childhood friend and fellow New York Mets superfan, died in 2008 at the age of 48. McDonald kept Riegel's ashes in a peanut can wrapped in Mets ticket stubs next to his collection of baseball autographs and World Series highlights, but he wasn't sure exactly what to do with them, the AP reports. According to the New York Times, the answer presented itself after a trip to a bar's men's room: flush his friend's ashes down the toilet. Since McDonald's stroke of genius, he's flushed scoops of Riegel's ashes at 16 Major League stadiums around the country. McDonald calls it the "perfect tribute" to his friend, "the best plumber you ever saw" who "walked that tightrope between genius and insanity." Hank Riegel agrees, saying his brother "would definitely approve of it." There are rules to McDonald's tribute to Riegel: a baseball game must be in progress when the ashes are flushed, and if McDonald also has to use the facilities, "I always flush in between." McDonald has flushed Riegel's ashes in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit, Baltimore, and Chicago (though not at Wrigley Field due to the Cubs' rival status), to name a few. McDonald says he has enough ashes left for one final flush, which he plans to do at North Carolina's Durham Athletic Park, where the movie Bull Durham was filmed.