Eckstein

I'm Eckstein-ed out. I blame the media, not David. I'll explain.
I think David Eckstein is a fantastic human being. He's got a work ethic unparalelled on the Cardinals with the possible exception of Pujols. He seems to enjoy being in St. Louis, working hard and greeting fans. He also gets paid beans next to his underachieveing predecessor Renteria and has been the best investment of the year by team management. I'm happy he's here and wish him all the best.
That said, I am sick of hearing about how short Eckstein is. If I hear one more sports reporter in print, on TV, or radio spit out the phrase, "and he's only 5'7", or as Whitey Eckstein is often quoted, just "5'6" and 3/4", I'm going to vomit. Also words like "scrappy". Thesaurus anyone?
Then there's the family story. It was overtold last year when we signed him, then there are the 4-times-per-night commercials during the game broadcast with David promoting organ donation. Sometimes they run twice in the same commercial break. I think his family is probably filled with other fantastic, hard-working, scrappy people, but I've heard enough. I should not know his siblings' names. Christine, Susan, Rick (the other healthy sibling), and then, who else? One more brother who got a transplant from a stranger, I think it's Steven. Steven appears to be gay from my observations and I'm suprised this has not yet been delved into in a 4-part story on channel 5 as the rest of the kidney saga has. Oh, and then there's Pat the mom who gave Susan her kidney, and Whitey the dad who just got a kidney from Liz, a family friend.
I don't even know if Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds, or Scott Rolen HAVE siblings, let alone their first names and life stories!!
I'm very happy all the Ecksteins (who despite the semitic name are in fact, practicing Catholics- thank you St. Louis Review!) are healthy little people. Truly I am happy for them, and also glad that organ donation is probably getting some much-needed attention. But I'm also annoyed by something that is probably a cruel detail to point out. This is congenital kidney disease, a genetic tragedy for this family. They state that already, the next generation of Eckstein offspring already include a number of children with the genetic flaw that will cause a transplant to be necessary later in life. Dad told David and his healthy brother to hang on to their organs in case one of these kids need it down the road. Very admirable. Then Dad goes on... you know, David is getting married soon and his kids might need the organs too.


(pause to ponder this profundity...)




Huh? You carry a genetic flaw that can cause painful, debilitating symptoms that require 4x weekly dialysis treatments, eventual life-threatening surgery and anti-rejection meds for life and more than likely another surgery later to replace your replacement organ? And you have a family in which several people already suffer this fate and will probably require new kidneys in their lifetime? And you STILL plan to bring more people into the world who have a 50% or greater chance of having the same condition?
Is that selfish or is it just me?
There's already a serious organ shortage in the world. I'm sure the publicity has caused more donors to sign up but should ALL of these donors be contributing to the Eckstein family? This is a prolific family, exceptionally fertile from an observer's view and the waiting list for kidneys in California might be populated by Ecksteins in great proportion in the next 20 years. Am I mistaken in thinking that Rick and David can only spare one kidney each? That's one neice or nephew each, and what if David and his little wife pop out 5 or more future kidney recipients? Sorry, young Jimmy, but I promised Dad I'd give my kidney to your cousin Bobby a long time ago, so we're going to put your name on the waiting list and you can just keep having your blood cleaned for another 5-10 years while we wait for your turn.
I'm thinking that vasectomy and adoption might be the way to go here, folks. I realize that the temptation to create another MLB player to keep the organ donation promotion in the news as well as the medical-bill income flowing is great, but Scrappy Dave is about 5'6 and 3/4 and 140 lbs soaking wet and his tiny fiance is probably half that so are we to believe that lighting could strike twice?
I'm probably going to hell for writing this, but maybe others are thinking it. Lord knows we all have enough info on the Eckstein family to have opinions on their situation. Maybe its just time someone talked about a different angle. Hey, here's to David being the MVP of the NLCS, because I'm sure there's an anecdote or two we haven't yet heard about his wee family, and its time ESPN picked up that story.