The Pecan Park Eagle

All the Angels Aren't in Anaheim.

Last week I was privileged to have attended the dedication of the new Jimmy Wynn Training Center for young people on Victory drive on the near north side. What an appropriate street of right dreams that turns out to be for a place dedicated primarily to the service of inner-city youth in the name of the great Houston Astros slugging icon. Slugging icon? The greatness hardly stops there. The man is a walking embodiment of how we should all live – each in our own ways. Jimmy Wynn is a winner of the first order. The more you get to know him, the more you learn how that true that turns out to be.

Jimmy Wynn is a very modest man. He doesn’t do things to draw attention to himself, nor does he expect somebody to name a building after him for any reason. He just quietly does what he does out of genuine caring – and as he so acts – his resultantly energized legend as one of baseball’s all time greatest ambassadors – and certainly too, his reputation as one the most powerful icons of caring that ever reached out to Houston in the name of the Astros –  just each, both, and one and the same – continue to grow.

In a world where many players and former players only do the minimum, if anything at all, in the name of community service, Jimmy Wynn does little things constantly that just astound. Jimmy performs acts of goodwill out of caring all the time that no one else would ever know about, if they didn’t have someone like me around, observing him in jaw-dropping awe. I just happen to be around lately as Jimmy and I go through this round of almost weekly book signings on his new book, “Toy Cannon: The Autobiography of Baseball’s Jimmy Wynn.” I see how Jimmy  interacts with fans, making each one who approaches him feel special and valued. There’s no phoney-baloney too it either, Jimmy Wynn really cares about the people whose interest in him made it possible for him to have a long and wonderful career in baseball.

How many current or former players can we list who never seem to “get” how important the fans are to their success? Potentiate that appreciation for players like Jimmy Wynn with the fact also that he played in the era that preceded baseball becoming a road to mind-blowing riches. No, Jimmy doesn’t appreciate the fans because they made him financially rich, which they did not. He appreciates them for giving him a reason to have played the game that he loved in really net ballparks around the country – and in pursuit of that always elusive World Series championship..

The fans. Baseball itself. The way Jimmy Wynn played  his way into becoming The Toy Cannon. – They were all part of the man’s Love of the Game.

On Saturday, this anonymous family approached Jimmy Wynn, to say hello. They told Jimmy that it was their little son's first baseball game.

Yesterday, at a Saturday book signing that Jimmy Wynn and I did at Minute Maid Park, one of those quiet little honest moments just happened, as they so often do in the everyday life of Jimmy Wynn. There were no public relations people around to stage it, or make a deal of it for the wrong reasons. It just happened – and it just happened because of the man that Jimmy Wynn is.

A young couple walked up to say hello to Jimmy Wynn. They had seats in the nose bleed section, but they wanted their young son to meet jimmy Wynn before they settled in for the Red Sox-Astros game up in the hinterlands. This was a special day. It was their cute little boy’s first major league baseball game.

Jimmy Wynn wanted the little boy to have a real souvenir of his first game at Minute Maid Park.

“His very first game?” Jimmy asked, as his eyes lit up. “Then we need to do something to help him remember someday how special this day really was.” The next thing we all knew, including the parents of the little boy, Jimmy had summoned one of the ballpark people over to our table. He gave this person his car keys, along with a special request.

“There’s a baseball in the back seat of my car across the street,” Jimmy told the attendant. “Would you mind going over there and getting it for me?”

Once  the attendant most obligingly did what had been asked, Jimmy took this official MLB baseball and signed it. – “Jimmy Wynn” now sweeps across the sweet spot of this baseball in ink that will still be there when the little boy is old enough to understand – if he doesn’t play with it too much in the yard.

It was a golden moment when the little boy’s eyes and smile both lit up as Jimmy handed him that special baseball. I do hope he has it for a lifetime. Nobody needs to grow old with the story of the signed baseball or special baseball card that they should have saved.

Wow! My mind still boggles over Jimmy’s generosity!

Jimmy Wynn’s actions provide us with a common sense answer to that famous question from philosophy and physics: When a tree falls in the forest, and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?

In the case of people like Jimmy Wynn, the answer is “Yes! Yes! And Yes!”

In the butterfly effect of things, where actions of all kinds register and vibrate to the whole world in some way, for better or worse, it makes for a big, big big sound on the side of positive energy regeneration. For Jimmy Wynn to have taken the trouble to have signed and given that ball to the little kid is just “above and beyond” the call. – It was pure love – and completely detached from any self-serving motive. This man simply gives –  because he enjoys giving.

For those of us who believe in God as the Divine Creator of All, allow me the liberty to express it a little differently: To me, Jimmy Wynn is the living, breathing example of the paradigm that “God is Love.”

And God bless you too, Jimmy Wynn. Just keep on doing what you do, We are all fortunate to have you here as an important contributing member of our greater Houston community.

Godspeed. And a safe and happy Independence Day wish to one and all.