Last June, the Cubs
drafted Chris Singleton, an outfielder out of Charleston Southern
University. The ninth-round pick could
be a sleeper, with speed to go with a nice on-base percentage. Ordinarily, I don’t care about who the Cubs
pick, but Singleton is different. His
mother was one of the nine people killed in the 2015 church shooting in
Charleston, South Carolina. I’m not sure
I could handle that kind of tragedy. Singleton,
though, seems to have accepted it and not let it affect his view of
humanity. I can’t help but root for a
player like that.
Meanwhile, the White
Sox last June took shortstop Mikey Duarte from UC Irvine in the 23rd
round; I didn’t become aware of Duarte until months later, sometime after the
October mass shooting in Las Vegas; Duarte’s 21-year old sister Christiana was among
the 58 victims. Duarte doubled in his
first spring-training game this week; in a postgame interview, he said he
dedicated the hit to Christiana. It’s
pretty obvious that her death still weighs on him. Again, I can’t help but root for someone like
that.
I just wish these young
men had been made to exhibit grace under a different sort of pressure.
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