Little People
7/28/03
During the 2002-2003 NBA season, there was nothing more inspirational than watching Golden State's Earl Boykins, at 5'5" easily the shortest man in the league, take a taller man off the dribble and school him with a wild running jump shot.
In this baseball season, the equivalent of that has to be watching Atlanta's Marcus Giles muscle up with his wild lumberjack swing -- a gigantic, thunderous one-handed hack, as if he is trying to chop down a tree with a broadsword -- and power one over the fence, then run around the bases with his strange half-run, half-shuffle.
Giles, who hit his 10th home run tonight, is listed as 5'8", but watching him on TV, he can't be an inch taller than 4 foot 6, which makes his displays of power all the more awesome.
Granted, being successful as a little man in baseball is much more common than being successful as a midget (ahem, I mean little person) in the NBA. But the great thing about Giles is, he doesn't play like a little man. It's as if no one let him in on the fact that he's short. He's got one of the biggest swings in the game. He's almost like that irrepressible little brother figure, the one who always ran around with the bigger kids (in this case, his older brother Brian) and always believed he belonged, even when he didn't. Just watching him on TV, he radiates a youthful persona which is truly refreshing to see. Why, just tonight, in the midst of a career- best 2 homer, 6 rbi game, I saw him tilt his head back during a lull in the action and launch tobacco juice (or was it saliva?) as high into the air as he could, as if it were some sort of competition to see who could spit the highest. You can just picture him on a road trip, tagging along with Smoltz or Sheffield or whoever. "Where are we going, fellas? Mind if I come along?"
I wonder if I can spit higher than Giles can...
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