[Vision2020] In Praise of Arizona

[Tom Hansen]

"In Praise of Arizona"
By Rick Reilly

Here's a scoop for you. The Diamondbacks are flagrantly violating MLB 
rules. They're a pro team, and yet they're giving out full-ride 
scholarships. Been doing it for two years now!

Not to their players. To their fans.

It's an idea D-backs CEO Derrick Hall came up with at one game when a 
season-ticket holder who'd lost everything, even her car, introduced 
herself. She told him a fan in her section had bought her two season 
tickets for the rest of the year, even picked her up every game and took 
her home. And Hall thought, "Why don't we do this for our fans?" So he 
asked fans to send in applications for scholarships. Soon, his e-mail in-
box was swamped.

My 13-year-old nephew is a huge fan. He is a really good kid but gets 
bullied for his need of dental work and lack of "designer" clothes. 
Baseball is his outlet. No one can see him underneath that catcher mask. 
His family has always struggled, and recently his father got laid off. 
He'd love to go to a game. -- Michelle

Michelle's nephew, who preferred not to be named, didn't get a ticket to 
just a single game. He's going to all 81, along with his parents, brother 
and sister. 

"He went crazy," says his dad, an unemployed electrician. "He kept 
yelling, 'Are you kidding me!?!' And he put the letter from the D-backs up 
on his wall. He's such a good kid."

Next question: Anybody know a big­hearted orthodontist? I'm a single mom of 
two amazing little boys. For the past two years [we've] been struggling to 
pick up the pieces after my [husband and I split abruptly]. We lost our 
house, our car and had to sell mostly everything we owned. I do not make 
enough to make ends meet, and my ex-husband is behind in child support by 
$20,000. [Editor's note: Daniel Lombardi's wages are now being used to pay 
down that debt.] I would really love to take my boys to the games and give 
them some enjoyment. -- Tami Lombardi

Derrick Hall called to tell Ms. Lombardi that she was getting not only 
three season tickets but free parking, $400 in food vouchers and spots for 
her boys in a Diamondbacks players' clinic. Will that do?

"It was so awesome," she gushes. "We never miss a game on TV. Now we get 
to go!"

Even better: Her ex is a huge D-backs fan. Choke on it, dude.

All told, the D-backs put 18 families on scholarship -- 41 season tickets 
worth nearly $100,000 -- and every one of their stories would make your 
knees give. There was the daughter whose softball-playing mom broke her 
leg sliding into second, couldn't work and is now losing her house. There 
was Beth Godfrey, who was fighting leukemia. She won tickets but died soon 
afterward. Now those tickets are being donated in her name to charity.

One mom nominated her firefighter son, Breezy Morago, who broke his leg 
playing football, then rebroke it when a Jeep hit him while he was riding 
his bike, then burned it fighting a fire. Oh, and he lost everything when 
his own house burned. He gets a pair of tickets. Maybe he'll be safe at 
the ballpark.

My favorite, though, might be this one:

I couldn't raise my three children without my young brother. He drives my 
son to all of his baseball games, picks up my sick kids, takes them to 
movies, helps with homework, always lends a hand. What 20-year-old single 
guy does this and is still a full-time student and holds down two jobs? My 
brother Eric! Ever since he was little, he has had season tickets on his 
Christmas list. Year after year it goes unanswered. This year I ask you to 
consider my sweet brother Eric, the Greatest Uncle. -- Carol Stuart Like 
nearly every winner, the Greatest Uncle, Eric Robles, didn't know what his 
sister had done. When he found out he won, "It was five minutes before it 
hit me: I have season tickets!" Robles says.

And in a what-should-I-Twitter-about-myself-now? world, why would a young 
guy be so selfless? "Well, I know what it's like when your parents 
divorce. It can be hard. Moving. Splitting up from their dad. I wanted to 
make sure nothing happened to the kids."

He spends most days three feet off the ground now. In fact, on the season 
schedule, he has circled in red the games he's going to. 

A co-worker was looking at it and finally said, "Eric, every game is 
circled."

Exactly. 

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The Diamondbacks honored Eric Robles (second from left) with season 
tickets. 
 
http://tinyurl.com/EricRobles

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Seeya round town (no teabagging allowed), Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
Join us at The First Annual Intolerista Wingding, April 17th, featuring 
Roy Zimmerman and Jeanne McHale.  For details go to . . .

http://www.MoscowCares.com/Wingding
 
Seeya
there.

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