Anthony Rizzo is 1-for-June. I can't believe I'm writing this, but my favorite-most ballplayer simply cannot connect for a bloop single, much less a home run. He was benched for the first time I can recall, and tonight he got back in the batter's box and went 0-4. He made an exceptional defensive play and did it with his joy and enthusiasm. But Yankee fans are still calling him a bum, saying he sucks. The New York press is using words like "fried."
He deserves better. He is such a good man. Last weekend, 500 people -- pediatric cancer patients or their family members -- enjoyed a June afternoon at a Chicagoland amusement park. Free.
That's just here. Before this season started, Anthony got to party with pediatric cancer patients and their families at the Boomers Amusement Park in Boca Raton.
In New York, the $255 entry fee for the NYC marathon was comped for 27 runners who were competing on behalf of the Children's Hospital at Montefiore.
Then there are the grants. Unpublicized but more important than the big events. Parents of kids with cancer can apply for financial help to pay for what insurance won't: Parking and meals in the hospital, daycare for siblings while parents accompany their children to treatments, rent/mortgage assistance for parents who have to skip work to care for their pediatric cancer patient ...
And the letters! Anthony sends personal letters to young people all over the country who are battling cancer, giving them hope with the story of how he beat the disease as a teenager.
So during the first six months of 2024, Anthony Rizzo has done more to help others than some of us do in our entire lives. That's why watching him struggle hurts me so. He deserves more from life, from baseball, from karma. The public embarrassment of being told he sucks, that he's a loser, that he's fried ... I hurt with him.
Meanwhile, in Tampa, my Cubs lost in the bottom of the 9th.
Just because I love baseball doesn't mean it loves me back.
Some of my colleagues went to a KC Royals game while we were there. I was going to go but my niece drove up from Tulsa to visit me.
ReplyDeleteIt is more important to be a good human than it is to have a good batting average, and your Rizzo is excellent at that.
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