Warning: Hankie Alert
A very touching story in today’s Boston Globe. I couldn’t help but be reminded what a central role the game of baseball played in my childhood, and in my relationship with my father.
A die hard Red Sox fan from Utah promised his sons that he would take them to Fenway Park to see a game this summer. The father, James W. Taylor, Jr. was killed in a helicopter accident in Arizona in June. He worked as an emergency room nurse, served as a first lieutenant in the US Army Reserves and worked part time on Life Flight. He was on a Life Flight, working to save a life, when the accident happened.
The Taylor family wanted to let the boys live out this dream of seeing their team at Fenway Park. James sister posted a message on a Red Sox fan site asking if anyone could help her make this dream a reality.
Well, Red Sox Nation, the players and some local businesses stepped up big time.
“I’m writing in hopes that there will be someone, somewhere that will read this story. Somehow, someway our family will find a way to get my brother’s boys to a Red Sox game. With all the expenses of the funeral we may need help . . .”
And Red Sox Nation took it from there.
“I was suspicious at first,” said Tom Nardozzi, a Red Sox fan from New Hampshire who quarterbacked the drive. “I asked her what she needed and she said, ‘Damn near everything.’ ”
More than $2,000 in donations from as far away as New Zealand and Denmark were collected by Cyn Donnelly, a longtime Red Sox blogger. JetBlue donated eight round-trip tickets from Salt Lake City to Boston. Fight promoter Al Valenti took the family to Regina’s in the North End but when he tried to pick up the check, the restaurant told him there would be no check.
Nardozzi bought the Taylor family eight box seats just up from the Red Sox’ on-deck circle. But he didn’t want to talk about his act of kindness.
“Whaddya mean why am I doing this? It just seemed the right thing to do. A 10-year-old boy loses his dad. The common connection is Red Sox baseball. I love the Boston Red Sox. Why not?”
Do yourself a favor and read the full story, and don’t miss the photo gallery either.
Did you catch Joe Biden making the rounds on the morning shows today? He obviously jumped out of bed this morning and said, “I have to start lowering expectations for the VP debate NOW!.” He looked like someone stole his puppy.
These quotes from his CNN live shot are representatibve of his morning,
“Boy she’s going to be a tough debater, she’s going to be a skillful debater.”
Here are a couple of exchanges,
Biden: “What I’m going to try to do, and I may not be able to get to because she’s so good, but I’m gonna try to point out where we want to take the country and how they don’t have a single answer to dig us out of the hole we’ve been dug into the last eight years.”
“If it comes down who can deliver the toughest lines, she’s going to win the debate, but I’m not going there.”
John Roberts: “I can see that you are already playing the game of raising expectations for her.”
Biden: Hey look, you watched her last night she was good, she was really good.”
Roberts: I’m looking forward to that debate on October 2nd
Biden: I’m not sure I am now after seeing her.
Is Biden afraid of Pailin? No, of course not. Yes, he was being gracious, to an extent. It showed me that he is unsure of how to effectively go after her.
She was great. Confident, poised, solid. Some absolutely great zingers against Obama and Biden. Some deft clicker work showed great reviews on CBS from Jeff Greenfield, from CNN’s AC360, David Gergen and Amy Holmes, MSNBC’s Ann Curry and less surprisingly, the Fox News crew.
That said. As we’ve learned throughout this election, giving a good speech is easy. The real test for Sarah Palin has yet to begin. The interviews and most importantly, the debate, are the real tests. Anyone who doubts she is up to the job is fooling themselves. Is it any wonder why the left is so apoplectic?
Here’s the speech.
Yes, I’m loving every second of it. Just freaking awesome.
From a letter to the editor in the WSJ, via the Weekly Standard
Under 45, lover of the outdoors, a Republican reformer who has taken on the Republican Party establishment, has many children, and a spot on the national ticket as vice president with less than two years in the governor’s office.
For the correct answer, go to the comments.
Dave Price at Dean’s World
Why is it we get massive national coverage of VP candidate Sarah’s Palin’s daughter Bristol — including three NYT page one articles in one day – while the fact Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s half-brother lives on a dollar a day in a Third World war-zone hellhole, despite the Obama family’s millions, goes pretty much unnoticed outside of British papers?
Yes, that’s a rhetorical question.
Andrea Peyser, New York Post
When Joe Biden tragically lost his wife and infant daughter in a car wreck in 1972, not a single colleague, friend or competitor advised him to quit his newly won Senate seat to raise his two little surviving sons.
Rather, he was sworn into office from the injured boys’ bedside, and took to commuting an hour and a half each way from Delaware to Washington. And when Biden’s second wife gave birth to a daughter, no one thought to ask him to step aside and stay home.
…The stupendously sexist New York Times printed a front-page article noting that some unnamed women argue over “whether there are enough hours in the day for her to take on the vice presidency, and whether she is right to try.”
Nazi analogies suddenly in vogue
Huh? What? Maybe you haven’t heard. Sarah Palin and now the entire GOP have been compared to the Nazi’s this week. Where you ask? On nasty left wing blogs? Well, probably there too. How about on MSNBC by a Democrat congressman, on CNN’s Larry King Live and even by the Obama campaign itself.
An emailer to Michelle Malkin,
“Isn’t it ironic that most major newspapers will not print the names of minors involved in criminal acts including murder, but they can trash Bristol Palin? Just proves the drive-by media is driven to despicable double standards.â€
Jennifer Rubin at Pajamas Media
Republicans rally around a career woman with a stay-at-home husband, and Democrats call her a negligent parent. Who are the feminists again?
Bryan Pick at QandO,
Why is it that the only major media outlet that managed to keep the same journalistic standards intact from the Edwards affair to Sarah Palin is the National Enquirer?
On Sarah Palin
Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit. Well, give me a tough Alaskan Governor who has taken on the political establishment in the largest state in the Union — and won — over the beltway business-as-usual crowd any day of the week.
Let’s be clear … the selection of Governor Palin has the other side and their friends in the media in a state of panic. She is a courageous, successful, reformer, who is not afraid to take on the establishment.
Sound like anyone else we know?
On John McCain
It’s pretty clear there are two questions we will never have to ask ourselves, “Who is this man?” and “Can we trust this man with the Presidency?”
Ronald Reagan was John McCain’s hero.
And President Reagan admired John tremendously.
But when the President proposed putting U.S. troops in Beirut, John McCain, a freshman Congressman, stood up and cast a vote against his hero because he thought the deployment was a mistake.
My friends … that is character you can believe in.
The respect [McCain] is given around the world is not because of a teleprompter speech designed to appeal to American critics abroad, but because of decades of clearly demonstrated character and statesmanship.