Thoughts about an interview

This morning while I was working, I was listening to WCRF. About 7:35, Mark Zimmerman had Terry Pluto on during a segment. They talked about sports this morning, the Browns, and the Cavaliers.

The last part of the segment, Terry talked about Casey Coleman. Much has been discussed about his recovery from alcoholism and Terry wrote a column about that yesterday. Today the talk was about when they were new Christians and how they had to overcome some language problems. Accountability was also discussed. (Sometimes it's good to know that I'm not the only one that needs to watch myself.) It was a very good segment.

After looking at most of the local websites in the past couple of days, I started to wonder why, in every instance, the sites would have a picture of Casey taken in the past year. Then it occured to me; he picked up alot of fans during this time in the way he handled his condition. I noticed that in all these photos there was a sincere smile on his face. From all the stories which I heard, I'm convinced that Casey accepted what was dealt to him.

Reminds me of another story I heard about 11 years ago, when Mickey Mantle had passed on. The Mick had been as intense a drinker as he was a baseball player. Drinking had probably robbed him of several years of his baseball career. Later in life, Mickey had hit rock bottom with his drinking. He had said that he was not a role model. I believe that was out of a broken spirit, whereas Charles Barkley's quote was out of arrogance(my opinion).

Mickey had received treatment for alcoholism but later needed a liver transplant. He died months later from cancer. In his last days, his Yankee teamate, Bobby Richardson, now an evangelist, had come to visit and to witness. Mickey had professed to Bobby that he had made it right with the Lord.