May 2007
Pitching Amidst The Waves
News of John Smoltz’ 200th victory and hints of a date with Cooperstown underscore how HOF pitchers arrive in distinct waves, like immigrants, at least according to the baseball writers.
Consider that the most recent starting pitcher to embark on his Hall of Fame career was Tom Seaver – forty years ago. Since his 1967 ROY season, no subsequent HOF starter – not one – has debuted in the majors (assuming Eckersley is a hybrid/closer).
In stark contrast to those forty years, the mere eight years preceding Seaver (1959-1966) produced no less than ten HOF debuts (Gibson, Marichal, Perry, Neikro, Palmer, Catfish, Carlton, Fergie, Sutton, and Ryan). That was the first great wave of dominant pitchers after the war, or at least starters who the BBWAA deemed great, followed by this enormous sixteen year trough between Seaver(1967) and Clemens(1984).
Three HOF relievers began careers in this depression – Fingers(1968), Eck(1974) and Sutter(1976) – but no starters to date. The hopeful standard bearers of this unprecedented dry spell are Bert Blyleven and Jack Morris – other contemporaries with little chance of induction include Ron Guidry (170-91), Dennis Martinez (245-193), Orel Hershiser (204-150) and Bob Welch (211-146).
I like Luis Tiant and Jim Kaat as much as the next guy, but after you’ve inducted a dozen of their contemporaries and totally shut out the subsequent generation of starters, maybe it’s time to reevaluate traditional statistical analysis in favor of a more contextual approach to determine the greatest pitchers of all time and account for the game’s evolution.
Holding one’s breath on this matter is not recommended, 
however, because the second wave, led by Roger Clemens, is almost upon us and may soon wash away any such discussion. Clemens, Maddux, Big Unit, Pedro and Glavine are not only Cooperstown locks, as are closers Rivera and Hoffman, but they also tend to recast Blyleven and Morris in a relatively dimmer light.
Moreover, a worthy second tier of bubble boys, headed by Smoltz, Mussina and Schilling may further serve to undermine historical candidates. Are these pitchers who began in the 1980′s (and the sixties) genuinely better than the starters of the 70′s, and if so, by how much? Or are they riding a wave of favorable underlying conditions on their way to the Hall of Fame at the expense of their elders?
(photos courtesy of surfrider.org and Gregory Smith/AP)
Amateurs
There was a time they played doubleheaders at Bank One Ballpark.
Really.
Not the 18 inning halcyon twin bills that MLB stomped out a generation ago, but two entertaining games for one reasonable admission nonetheless. The Bank One Double Dip.
Each June, the Dbacks scheduled a Saturday afternoon game to accomodate that evening’s Super 50 High School All Star contest, a joyful spectacle showcasing Arizona’s best prep players in a major league stadium. What made the Super 50 great was that it represented all counties and school sizes within Arizona, not just the Phoenix and Mesa powerhouses. A leadoff man from Scottsdale’s Saguaro High, followed by Moreno from Yuma and Jensen from St John. Native parties from Page and Window Rock would drive seven hours to The City, sit in the upper deck during the Dbacks game, then invade the field boxes to cheer on Begay and Running Bear in the nightcap.
For many, performing on a major league diamond and meeting MLB players between games, was the highlight of their young, accomplished baseball lives. For me, it was more than baseball. It was a day to embrace Arizona and appreciate a game with the power to bring people together. A day to be proud of your hometown franchise. Your state. Yes, even your country.
That was then and this is now. As if Callaspogate and rusty gates weren’t a sufficient week’s damage, our proud, responsible front office has now given the gate to The Super 50 High School All Star Game. According to Garye LaFevers, President of the Arizona Baseball Coaches Assn:
"The Diamondbacks declined to host the game this year because the All-Star game didn’t make enough money…"
Makes sense. What kind of reputable sports franchise would consider springing 
for a couple security guards and letting the A/C linger an extra hour, just to host a heartwarming baseball game where youngsters and fans are having the time of their lives, creating indelible memories and bonds with the club? That would be the Ken Kendrick and Jeff Moorad Reputable Sports Franchise.
The same franchise that failed to draw 20K fans to last night’s loss and which has yet to sell out their big Saturday night Red Sox game on June 9th. It bears mentioning that there are thousands and thousands of seats still available, despite the BoSox’ exceedingly rare valley appearances and an MLB-best record. So, buy your seats today for what promises to be a really cool ballgame.
Assuming the air conditioner is on.
(photos courtesy of allposters.com and keepitoff.blogs.com)
Not So Grand Slam
As if irritated by some red rash, fans of the Sedona Scarlets are itching to look back on Tony Clark’s grand slam Saturday as this season’s turning point. Daron Sutton has framed the significance of this event for us, no less than half a dozen times. Just as Clark crossed the Pittsburgh plate, however, another defining moment occured, as the on deck hitter, recently reinstated Alberto Callaspo, congratulated our towering team sage.
Callaspo, a versatile fielder who rarely hits outside his apartment, was briefly placed on an unpaid restricted list following his arrest, yet returned to action disturbingly soon after allegations he threw his 17 month old into a headboard and cut his wife’s face with a knife.
To date, we’ve been spared a team press release claiming this accidently happened as the amorous couple carved their initials into the trunk of a palo verde tree, but it’s still a curious move by a club eager to talk up family and community values while struggling to capture that very community’s support.
Contrast their understated, almost blase approach with prior ownership’s response in similar situations. In 1999, Bobby Chouinard was released after an off season domestic dispute involving a gun and later served jail time. In 2001, Mike DiFelice was released a couple weeks after assaulting three people at a Pittsburgh bar. And with Colangelo, it wasnt just the scrubs who were sent packing – he dealt the Suns’ popular franchise player – and the NBA’s best point guard at the time – after Joumanna Kidd got a bloody lip.
Colangelo exercised manifestly different business priorities, likely the result of values apart from those held by his successors. When Kendrick and Moorad crow about responsibility, it means financial responsibility and protecting their own investments. Other duties in a quasi public enterprise, like reflecting community standards, are relegated to double talking spokesmen like Derrick Hall for massage therapy when they are perceived to be in conflict with the bottom line.
The company spiel is that the D*Backs are "surprised" about Alberto Callaspo’s history of violence. Sound familiar? Remember how Kendrick was "surprised" when Wally Backman’s personal troubles were magically exposed by the indolent Phoenix press in half an hour? The truth was Kendrick always knew Backman carried more baggage than a Pullman porter but was willing to ride the ups and downs because Backman was such a dynamic manager. Kendrick badly miscalculated public reaction, however, which, given his lack of expertise in professional sports management, is excusable. The inexcusable part was casting aspersions about Backman and former owner Colangelo, rather than publicly acknowledging his own culpability in the controversy.
Without knowing all the details here, Callaspo’s enrollment in anger management classes makes it clear that his wife’s fearful pleas to police arent the product of a kooky Venezuelan imagination any more than a knife mark or "minor abrasions" on her face. Judging from press reports, our own wild stab is that Alberto has corporate lawyers galore and his 22 year old wife, who only recently learned of the 911 emergency system at her disposal, lacks representation of any kind.
Predictably, the Diamondbacks’ designated crisis communicator is entirely silent about the issue of the day – his organization’s feelings about Callaspo – yet is all too eager to advertise how "proud" he is of the entire organization handling this sensitive 
situation. Why, the more you think about it, this whole incident is almost cause for celebration, really. Fans of Hall’s verbal gymnastics may recall his similar language while eliminating the $1 seats. In Hall’s lexicon, "extremely proud" means "Our policies screw people with little or no voice, but true Diamondback fans should feel warm about it inside."
Any lawyer would be "proud" of the way Hall expresses obligatory concern for generic domestic violence while distancing Callaspo from any wrongdoing – all to setup the nauseating bromide about his belief in second chances. Well, it’s not Callaspo’s second chance. According to the police report, Alberto’s been flinging his young, vulnerable family around at least since they arrived in the States. Perhaps Hall overlooked that in the rigorous, fact finding phase of his internal investigation. Aren’t young, impressionable, highly paid professional athletes routinely counseled about unacceptable behavior before problems arise, just as a matter of course? So, now, the Diamondbacks and the union have gotten together and decided that the solution here is more counseling.
I wonder if Hall took time from his busy schedule to pitch the upside of second chances to Marianny Paola, who’s been kicked – and apparently knifed in the face – by the D*Backs slashing utility man. Or if he had the opportunity to explain the inherent "win-win" here to the toddler whose cranium’s been slammed into the headboard at least once by Callaspo?
What does it matter whether this is the second or third or fourteenth chance for the child abuser starting today in left field, when today’s talking point is that we’re all extremely proud of the organization in times like these?
(images courtesy of larryscards.com and Norman Rockwell)
Key Hole
A team taking a series at Coors Field, scoring just three runs per game, is as rare as a blue moon, but thanks to Randy Johnson, Livan Hernandez and the less than celestial 
Rockies, the Diamondbacks accomplished the near impossible – and almost watchable.
Just beyond the quarter phase of the season, in what sometimes appears to be an out of body experience, our New Age Sedona offense is on pace to score less than the inaugural 1998 Arizona team (665 runs). Actually, the blood red boy wonders are sufficiently anemic to dribble out fewer runs than the bruised, purple 2004 squad (615 runs) that lost 111 games. But deferred hits and runs aside, why bring up such unpleasantries (609 runs, annualized) when the offense is this financially sound.
After all, no May team is destined to fulfill such a dubious September projection, especially not with shock troops like Mark Reynolds and Jason Smith parachuting daily into harm’s way. Shortstop Smith, who we recently learned shares the same surname as Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith, had a hit in today’s 3-1 victory and rappin’ Reynolds led the Wednesday attack with a single and two smashes over Willy Taveras in center, including a two run double.
Can Kevin Seitzer be far off, lurking in the shadows for the perfect time block to approach the newcomers with his Talmudic deconstructions of their "approaches"? Early on the flight to Pittsburgh, perhaps, immediately after the captain turns off the "Fasten Seatbelts" sign. Seriously, one has to laugh at how these sleep deprived nobodies of questionable pedigree just walk in and rap the ball all over the yard in marked contrast to the stable of highly prized, Seitzerized stars hitting .211 after all their quality time with Mr. KC Masterpiece .
Seitzer, who claims he can discern when a hitter’s stomach muscles arent properly tensed, solely by the sound of the bat on the ball – absent any visual information whatsoever – also likes to shout "Keyhole!" to his proteges, a reminder to narrow their vision to a specific part of the plate in anticipation of a pitch.
We have an alternate suggestion in anticipation of a "pitch". Assign a 
batboy to shadow Seitzer night and day, and whenever Kevin gets within earshot of any Diamondback hitter – have the batboy shout:
Piehole!
(images courtesy of www.sxc.hu , skynet.ie and choiceshirts.com)
Grate Stuff
Six or seven years ago, an easygoing friend of mine – a Dbacks fan – spewed an uncharacteristically harsh appraisal of Todd Walsh that I didnt understand at the time. To me, Walsh was pretty innocuous and intermittently amusing. I liked him because he was different from the cookie cutter mold of high strung, self important sideline reporters.
But my good natured friend, John, just detested Todd back then – he called Walsh a ‘complete phony’. John’s animus was so palpable he’d reflexively mute Walsh or simply leave the room.
A lot has happened in seven years. 9/11. Iraq. Questions about global warming. After all this time, though, I have, really, only one question.
Is anyone else as tired of Todd Walsh as I am?
I mean, how many of these tongue in cheek, painfully coy Walsh cameos must one fan base endure? The ones where the broadcasters play along with the promise of an inside joke that is sloppily, if ever, revealed. Or worse, the lame, drawn out banter lacking a punchline, climax or any remotely discernable purpose within the broadcast.
Yesterday, Walsh’s schtick consisted of thumbing through a bunch of Denver attraction brochures, while mocking the area’s entertainment options with Mark Grace. Potentially funny, I suppose, but it was unbearable listening to how Walsh spends his free time in Colorado. Is Todd the world’s laziest sports ‘journalist’ ever? Couldn’t he show us around the stadium, or, God forbid, actually interview one or two of the tens of thousands of available people more interesting than himself?
What’s even more annoying is the TV booth’s predictable cheerleading of Todd’s increasingly inane contributions. What do Sutton and Grace always say after one of Todd’s "reports"? Same exact thing Brennaman used to say.
"Aww. That’s great stuff, Todd. Great stuff!"
Great stuff? Sorry. No.
What’s so great about an astonishingly enabled gadfly more enamored with his smirky, college boy persona than with the sights and sounds he’s supposed to be chronicling? Whose primary joke – that he really doesnt have much to say – has long since worn thin? Walsh’s halting, self-deprecating, Jimmy Stewartesque delivery masks the self indulgent content of much of his work and hardly justifies such third rate "reporting".
(photo courtesy of phoenoxcoyotes.com)
Some Relief
What did we learn in the Phillies series?
- We played em at the right time, with Howard hobbling.
- Eric Byrnes, Tony Clark and Orlando Hudson hit 4 homers in three games vs very mediocre pitching.
- Diamondback youth hit zero homers – and little else – against the same staff in a homerdome, and now is the time for Kevin Seitzer’s role in their collective non-development to be acknowledged and altered.
The 8 neophytes – Drew, Young, Callaspo, CoJack, Quentin, Hairston, Montero and Barden – have acumulated 613 at bats. Together, they’ve hit nine homers, four by Chris Young. The cumulative .223 batting average is bad enough, but pales next to their .327 slugging % – which includes all those doubles they’ve been legging out. For perspective, Tony Womack slugged .356 lifetime, Counsell .349.
Did we learn anything about Randy?
- Best case, he’ll record his first win about a quarter of the way thru the season
- The bite in his slider is coming back
- He benefits from – and exploits – big strikezones.
- He’s consistently missing spots
The Diamondbacks embark on a sixteen game swing today that represents the easiest segment of this year’s schedule – at least on paper. Three games in Pittsburgh, sandwiched by 7 games against the Astros, a team that actually hits worse than Arizona, and a home n home against the stumbling Rockies.
This apparent windfall was preceded by a particularly tough patch of opponents, admirably survived, at 10-13(.434). What can we look for over the next sixteen games? Unlike the past few weeks, consider more of the up and down brand of .500 baseball a regression. This is an opportunity for Arizona to make a serious move in the standings, with a 10-6 or 11-5 mark. In my view, anything less than 9-7 fails to meet this team’s implied expectations. 
Yahoo’s Jeff Passan has a terrific article on former Dodger Mike Marshall and his iconoclastic quest to prevent pitching arm injuries by deconstructing and reinventing the pitching motion, somewhere on the outskirts of Tampa. Secretive and kooky, Marshall might be the kind of nut worth listening to. When he won the Cy Young Award in 1974, he pitched 208 innings, injury free.
In relief.
(photo courtesy of mlb and sptimes.com)
Power Pitcher
After a lengthy career alienating teammates, fans and much of the American 
public, it’s no longer news that Curt Schilling’s ego and passion to be heard outstrip his proclivity for considered or accurate expression. As Curt might say:
There’s no gray area there.
Barry Bonds has also had a lengthy career alienating teammates, fans and much of the American public, but Bonds isn’t in perpetual campaign mode either. Sure, he authorized his "Barry On Barry" damage control documentary on ESPN, but for the most part, Bonds has embraced the public persona of lightning rod, like a modern day Ty Cobb or Ted Williams – emotionally vacant, driven to be his generation’s finest player on the field.
But Schilling’s different. He needs to be a “player” outside the lines too. From sloppy declarations about Bonds to his jingoistic "letters" on world affairs, Schilling’s simplistic, ill-considered statements really aren’t beyond the mainstream, like those of John Rocker or Dennis Kucinich. In fact, like any politician, Schilling’s "heartfelt" proclamations often appear opportunistically timed, and tied, to mainstream opinion.
When appearing before the US Congress, ostensibly to blow the whistle on PED use, the "time" was right to bash Jose Canseco instead. Now that Bonds is paired up against the far more popular Hank Aaron, it’s evidently "time" to pounce on Barry. What’s comical, though, is Curt’s desperate compulsion to masquerade as some sort of respected, informed spokesman, rarely armed with more than his privileged status as a media connected professional athlete.
In 2004, when Schilling stumped for incumbent George W Bush, he didn’t say, "Hi, I’m Curt Schilling from the World Champion Boston Red Sox and I’m voting for George Bush". Here’s what he said:
"These past couple of weeks, Sox fans all throughout New England trusted me when it was my turn on the mound," Schilling says in the recording made Friday. ”Now you can trust me on this: President Bush is the right leader for our country."
Maybe he didn’t write the copy, but what kind of reasonably grounded person in this day and age would even agree to say something so presumptuous?
In the wake of 9/11, Schilling penned his self important masterwork, "Open Letter to America", a la deTocqueville. Eleven ponderous paragraphs speaking on behalf of baseball players and Americans everywhere – concluding, among other things, that Al Qaeda retribution would be "swift and total" because President Bush said so – an insight apparently gleaned from Schilling’s immense experience with online war games.
In the Diamondbacks’ celebratory postgame clubhouse just two months later, Schilling again came across as a tactless, loud mouthed fool, taunting sufficiently crushed New Yorkers by repeatedly shouting into the camera, “Who’s this belong to? Who’s this belong to?” clutching the Series trophy that he almost let slip away on the field. To this day, it’s the one bit in an otherwise cathartic World Series DVD I mute over because of it’s boorishness.
More recently, there’s this blog of his, 38pitches; created to eliminate the dreaded “filter” of sports journalists, so Curt can speak directly and accurately to his public without misrepresentation, without the injustice of it all. Judging from the lack of credibility and bad vibes Schilling generates a cappella, the national sports media has probably been doing this clown a favor for years.
Whether inspired by a sense of decency or the advice of a libel lawyer, or both, Schilling’s grandiosely titled “Public Apology” was cited for it’s comprehensive and contrite tone. He mentions Bonds and the hurt incurred by his family, but most of the lengthy mea culpa isn’t really about Bonds – it’s about Schilling and his increasingly tenuous connection with his constituents fans.
It’s always about Schilling. To watch such an ambitious, self centered, marginally informed guy desperately aspire to be a pillar of influence remains a source of high comedy. As if Americans dont get enough of that already.
(photo courtesy of brandeisrepublicans.com)
I Must Be In The Front Row
Chase Field’s Friday’s Front Row restaurant is a bit of a misnomer, isn’t it? Second 
deck, perched twenty five or thirty rows behind the lower deck’s first row. When I’ve had the misfortune of dining there, I sometimes fixate on birds nesting in the intricate roof structure because they’re so much closer than the players.
Another tape measure stretch is the fairy tale that Eric Byrnes’ moon shot yesterday, in the vicinity of "Friday’s", traveled the same distance as Scott Rolen’s 1999 crush off Omar Daal. If the initial claim that both went 473 feet is true, I’ll eat my hat. Heck, I’ll even buy a red hat and chew on that.
That would make Byrnes’ homer the longest in MLB this year, when it appeared, to this viewer at least, it might not even be the longest of homer of the day, or even of this particular game.
Eric’s bomb landed in the second row of balcony seats in front of Friday’s Front Row Grill, a certifiable tape measure shot, but Rolen’s ball traveled farther, probably by twenty feet or so. It struck the concrete facade of the restaurant itself, beyond and above the balcony section, essentially the front wall of the restaurant. For several years now, a white "Open 365 Days a Year" banner has covered Rolen’s spot, but in April 1999, it was bare concrete.
I was there, and remember being surprised that it carried to the wall without the looping trajectory of Mark McGwire’s 500 foot batting practice bombs. Rolen, the Phillies third baseman at the time, hit a line drive, which is not to say it was "still rising" on impact, but it assuredly didnt sink much either, a critical variable in estimating projected distance. Byrnes certainly hit his ball far and hard, but it was a low pitch tailing outside that he appeared to get under somewhat.
Finally, Byrnes’ ball was closer to the LF pole than Rolen’s, further suggesting that the earlier blast traveled farther.
I eagerly anticipate what these guys have to say about the issue, as they utilize triangulation, ball speed and vectors to arrive at their estimates.
The triangulation presented so far seems to be straight out of Bermuda.
( photos courtesy of mlb shop and mysterieszone.com )
Nightmare on Copper Square
It’s getting scaaaary, this red and black apparition. Freaky injuries plaguing youthful invincibles (Tracy, Quentin and Jackson). The chilly Fall of Brandon Webb and The Flammability of Jose Valverde. Fielders (Drew, Hairston and Clark) turning into pumpkins with the game on the line. And abysmal April baserunning that makes us yell "Boo"!
Does this horror show require more gory detail? The nightmare of zero phenoms hitting even .250 against major league pitching. Well. They’re heeerrrrre! A half dozen of them. Two starters leading the NL in walks, and miraculously, Webby, who’s given out more free passes than an unpopular amusement park attraction, is not one of them. Even the ghost of Randy Johnson
has given fans the heebee jeebees – but nary a unit, Big or otherwise, in the win column.
For many, it’s enough to lower expectations, or in some cases, lower the boom on this team. It’s certainly enough to drive one batty. But just as certainly, it must be pointed out, this spooky brand of play has also been sufficient to win half the scheduled games.
A week ago, the Diamondbacks were the worst 16-11 team in baseball, with an expected .500 record (derived from run differential) and a soft early slate, courtesy of the Nats and Rockies. Today however, after hosting grizzled California kings of the NL West and weathering a brisk Queens breeze, Arizona stands at 18-16, having scored as many runs as they’ve yielded, against a fairly representative cross section of NL competition.
Yet to hear some talk, one might assume our scarlet O’Haras are headed south in an awful hurry, as good as gone with the wind, as if the Yankees themselves were coming. But the truth is that Arizona’s playing as well as, or perhaps better than, their spunky 7-2 DC and Denver debut, even as their overall record settles in around .500.
Philadelphia’s Freddy Garcia, Adam Eaton and Jamie Moyer should provide some 
brotherly love for our spooked hitting trainees, who really need to produce against this trio of B-list ragarms, especially Eaton, who’s hanging on by an Ortizian thread. Kevin Seitzer’s charges lead the league in sac flies and still sport an excellent BB/K ratio, evidence of discipline and contact – but the youngsters in particular havent smacked the ball with nearly enough authority – and failure to average more than four runs per game in this series, against this staff in this park, is sufficient, in our eyes, to seriously revisit Seitzer’s role, particularly in light of the young studs’ extended, comprehensive doldrums.
It’s "early", but the young hitters’ collective inability to get out of the gate more smoothly cant speak well of Seitzer’s overarching influence on them, Hudson’s emergence notwithstanding. Add Callaspo and Hairston to the aforementioned phenoms and it’s hard to imagine a sextet with their bona fides hitting worse for 
six weeks if they had no instruction at all – no "special" approach, beyond just going up there and whacking the ball.
Maybe they could use last year’s hitting coach in Tucson? Or no "coach" at all.
Chris Young banged three sharp hits Monday and Carlos a couple hard grounders, including the game winner that was a foot from being a rally killing double play. Even runway model Conor Jackson squared up a ball for a respectable out. Ten hits in all and, hopefully, a harbinger of good things.
Like, maybe a home run every once in a while.
So, how do the Diamondbacks win? First and foremost, unsustainable pitching; they’ve won five of eight while scoring three runs which wont hold up for a season. But there’s more here. As the father of sabermetrics has pointed out, a deceptively large part of what we call "pitching" is actually attributable to defense, and last night was an excellent example, as Chris Young snatched two sure hits, and indeed the game, from the reeling Phillies.
Another possible explanation has to do with runs scored – not how many you score as much as how you distribute those runs across the schedule. As meek as Arizona’s offense has been, the 2007 Dbacks have distributed their measly allotment of runs more evenly than most teams, having been shut out just once while failing to tally more than nine runs in a single game. Whether this low deviation results from Arizona’s particular "small ball" style of play and can be somehow sustained, or is nothing more than frightfully good luck remains to be seen.
(photos courtesy of anytimecostumes.com, quizilla.com & mlb.com)
Touched
It often seems as if Randy Johnson gets touched up when the Metropolitans come to town. In the 1999 NLDS, Randy couldn’t close Gotham out in Arizona’s very first playoff game, he sputtered against them throughout the vaunted "Joe McEwing Era", and last night it was more of the same old, same old for our gangly geezer, losing to these same old Mets and the same, even older, Julio Franco.
Speaking of touched, we missed the first few innings, as we helped serve an early dinner to 1500 Special Olympians, coaches and groupies prior to that evening’s big Opening Ceremony at ASU’s 
Sun Angel Stadium. The Cinco de Mayo themed dinner party busted my dreaded, pre-conceived expectation that people “like that” make you grateful for what you have, which is a sanitized way of saying you’re glad you’re not “like them”. But after four hours, in some ways at least, I couldnt help but wish my son and I were more like these so called "special" people. And, for the record, I’m already enormously proud of my son.
I’m the kind of quasi intellectual who sometimes stands in the background at events like these and observes (ie grumbles and criticises), which is bloody 
hard to accomplish when complete strangers appear out of the sky (or so it seems) and literally hug me. Taciturn, unhuggable me! I mean, just who do these "special" people think they are, anyway? They’re friendly, grateful, and when "YMCA" and "I Will Survive" blare through the speakers, they get up, hundreds and hundreds of them, and dance like nobody’s watching. Let these silly fools be on notice – I was watching the whole time. Every last one of them. These people are so dam* happy, it almost makes me ill.
My stand up twelve year old, who served cases of tortillas, standing up, to a thousand 
people for three hours without a break, also served as a marked contrast to many of those he served. I dont think he smiled all day, really. Oh, he took pride in his work and the notion that he "did good", but he didnt seem to enjoy the moment as much as I would’ve liked. Maybe his parent’s overbearing pre -instructions about "not staring" at people robotized him somewhat, or maybe he’s learned, in his so called "normal" world, not to let his hair down too much, not to be the center of attention, not to risk looking like a fool? In any case, the Special Olympians, and some of the volunteers, taught me that my son and I both need to get up and dance, neighbors and tabloids be d*mned.
Since everyone’s being touched all over the place, let’s touch em all, so to speak, and mention that we received a most humbling request to republish our post from a year ago, Touched By Greatness. We will, for two reasons. One, it’s somewhat topical, given the Queen of England’s agenda today, and two, it’s theme of defining champions ties in rather nicely with Special Olympians, I think.
Anyway, here’s a link. Read it and weep 
(images courtesy of falboart.com and Michaelangelo)
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