The Money Shot - Courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission
I’ve spent the better part of this morning reading and re-reading stories about Daniel Nava. He has such a great story that folks really should get to know him. It’s a poor blogger who directs her readers to other blogs or websites and takes the traffic away from herself, but that’s what I’m doing this Sunday morning because I really can’t do those stories as much justice as their original authors. So here we go:
First up is Dan Hoard. Dan is the PawSox radio and tv broadcaster whose blog you should be already reading if you have any interest in the guys in Triple-A. His blog is funny and insightful and full of neat little bits of trivia. He’s written a lot about Nava and all of it is great stuff.
I watched the game from home with my niece and when he came up to bat was explaining his story and how he hadn’t been drafted and how long he had been working to get to the big leagues and how intimidating it must be to have your first at-bat in the bigs be with the bases loaded. I barely had time to begin the story when he hit the ball. My niece, 8 and still learning all there is to learn about baseball says to me “Wow he swung at the first pitch” as we both watched it go into the Red Sox bullpen. Then we jumped up and down yelling “Grand slam! He hit a grand slam!” like most of Red Sox Nation did. After all he’s gone through to get to this point, I can’t even imagine his euphoria at the demand for a curtain call on his first day in MLB. There aren’t enough words to describe my happiness for him.
On to WEEI…Joe Castiglione told Nava to “hit that first pitch out” before yesterday’s game only to be one-upped by Victor Martinez who called the grand slam just before it happened (for the SECOND time in VMart’s career).
Brian MacPherson sums it all up nicely in his column from yesterday:
Close to 20 years later — and more than 100 pounds later, too, for a young man who didn’t really start to grow until he’d already been cut at Santa Clara — Nava hit a grand slam in front of more than 37,000 fans at Fenway Park. He sprinted around the bases half in disbelief just the way he had when he hit his first home run as a 70-pound runt in high school.
Dan Hoard has been telling the story of Nava leaving a ticket at each game for Erin Andrews all season. Yesterday the folks who run the WEEI Twitter account contacted Erin through Twitter to let her know about Daniel, his ticket and his accomplishment. Erin, showing more class than she probably should have, responded politely:
have Dave Obrien pass along my best to Daniel!! Congrats on a big day that will go down in Sox history! Hope to meet him soon!
WEEI’s pimping aside, it would make a great footnote to all that’s happened to Daniel this weekend.
And my last link of the day: Fortunately for us, Kelly O’Connor was there to document the day in photographs. As you would expect, she got some beautiful shots!
Today is not a day to dwell on things like the fact that we now have two of our starting pitchers on the DL…today is a day to appreciate the accomplishments of someone who decided not to give up and who had his shining moment on national television for all to see. Regardless of what happens next, Daniel Nava’s is a story you can tell your kids to show them that even the smallest have a place in the world and even if it looks like your dream is unachievable, it’s never too late to give it a go.
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