This week is filled with stories about Barry Zito, Mike Piazza, Vicente Padilla, and other names from the Winter Meetings. I want to take a minute to talk about former Ranger pitcher Don Carman. If you don’t remember Don as a Ranger, that’s not surprising. He had even less than a cup of coffee with the Rangers in 1992. His entire Ranger career was two games in 1992 for a total of 2.1 innings pitched. His name is not up there in Rangers lore with Nolan Ryan.
But that’s not why I bring him up. Visitors to my site know I’m also a Phillies fan, and have been since I was a kid. I knew Carman fairly well in the 80’s with the Phillies. A friend of mine sent me a link this afternoon to a story on slate.com about Don Carman and fan mail. It’s a really nice story which shows players aren’t all about what Scott Boras can get for them in negotiations.
It’s the story of a kid (now an adult) who wrote to Don Carman back in the 80’s and never got a reply back. Until now. 15 years later Mr Carman found a box of letters in his garage, and decided to write back to them. Some of the things told in this story are a nice thing to hear in this week of meetings that are so awash in cash, one wonders if Lucifer himself is behind all the evil that that much money does.
Anyway, check it out. It’s a pretty darned nice story to read. It’s written by a Bryan Curtis; I wonder if that’s the same Bryan Curtis who is a news reporter for NBC5 news here in Dallas.
I have a few of these outstanding letters myself from many a year gone by – I wonder if I’ll ver get some of them back – problem is the address I would have sent them from has been out of my family for a decade now. Oh well. :)