All-Time Allstars - Shawn Green

By Diane Stanley
February 6 2003

What does it take to make a great baseball player? If he's a pitchers does he have to have a perfect game every time he pitches? If he's a hitter does he have to have a .400 average, and hit 40-50 homers a year? Well yes that helps, but there are also other things he can do.

He can be fan friendly. Sign autographs for kids and send them home with memories they will never forget. He can visit sick children in hospital and help give them the will to recover. He can use some of his vast amount of money to pay for poor children to attened a game. He can pay for those same sick children to see a game from a luxury box with their doctors and nurses in attendence just in case they are needed. He can wave when a fan calls him. Give his batting gloves to a child when he hits a home run. Give many, many hours to Jewish foundations to show his pride in his heritage. All things that my friend Shawn Green does and so much more.

Most of the players I support the most are not superstars. When I first started to support Shawn people would say "Shawn who?" Now he his known through just about any circle in North America that knows anything about baseball.

Last year he went home to California to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He may have struggled a little at his game as there are so many differences between the AL and the NL. There's a lot more to it than just the pitchers hitting or having a DH. Still Shawn has won a whole bunch of awards this off season. Not for what he did between the baselines, but for what he did that so few people knew about. All the things I mentioned and a whole bunch more.

The award he received this past Monday was for being a good roll model to the kids of LA. Knowing Shawn that award will mean more than any other he has ever received. What could any of us want more than to be a good roll model for the kids of today who have so much going against them?

To me Shawn Green is simply the best. Not only on, but off the field too. That gets him my nomination for the Hall Of Fame. One day I hope to see him in Cooperstown for real. Until then I guess I will have to be patient, and just put his name forward here.