Eric Chavez - great human being

Chavez is now my favorite person on the team.

My wife and I were in Phoenix for spring games and workouts from the 12th to the 19th.  On the 15th we visited Peoria to see the A's/Mariners game.  There was this cool spot in the stadium where we could see the players parking lot and the A's clubhouse.  As we waited for players to come out and sign autographs on their way to the field we met a family from the Bay Area (we are from Reno).  They had two boys, maybe 9 and 11 years old.  The older boy had his program and it looked like he already had tons of autographs.  He said he really wanted Eric Chavez.  Eventually players came out and Chavvy was one of them to stop to sign.  The boy got his autograph and was almost as happy to have it as my wife was to have one too!  

When we got to our seats we notice that we are right next to the family, and the warning track where the players head for the dugout.  Lo-and-behold Chavez comes out stops right in front of us to sign again.  One lady asks for a picture and now pictures are the big thing.  The same 11-year-old boy comes down, gets a picture with Chavvy and shares with him that he is a cancer survivor.  Cool moment as Chavvy tells the boy that he is proud of him.

Five or six innings of the Mariners kicking butt crawl by and Macha takes Chavez out of the game for Bobby Smith.  Between halves of an inning Chavvy heads down the line on his way to the clubhouse, he is done for the day.  As he approaches our section he takes a broken bat out of his bag and starts scanning the crowd for the boy.  He finds him, leans into the stands, jerks the bat out of the hand of some dude in front of the boy and makes sure that it lands in the hands he intends.  The boy has the biggest Kool-Aid smile you have ever seen.  It clearly is a great day!

* Here comes the cool part *

The boy gets on his Mom's cel phone to call his uncle.  This is the part that I heard:
"Hi Uncle (insert male name here)!  Guess what, we're at the A's game!  I made friends with Eric Chavez!"

Not "I got an autograph, a picture and a bat" but "I MADE FRIENDS"!

That's the type of guy our 4-time Gold Glove winner is . . . . . .