Lefty Joe

Lefty Joe___8x10 oil on linen panel___For the Whelan Family

Joe is one of our great lefties, for the Round Rock Dragons (5-A High School baseball in Central Texas).

Joe and my son have played ball together since they were pre-teens, and Joe's dad, Mike was probably the best coach my son Sam, ever had. Mike built Sam's confidence like no one else has, and I know Sam will never forget that. We lived on our farm back then, but when we had to decide where to live when the farm sold, it was this family that embodied the sweet spirit of Round Rock, and were one of the reasons we wanted our son to grow up here! We often wish Mike would STILL be coaching all those SAME boys, and we wonder how great they'd be if that was the case...(this is the stuff that moms talk about in the stands!). In fact, many of the boys who were on that team are now the MEN on this Round Rock team!...

The team had been together a few years before Sam got there. So he had to come in and be the new kid for a time. There was one boy they all called "Murph". After a while I learned that his name was Ryan. I supposed that his last name was Murphy. After about a year, I learned that when Ryan was new on the team, and told Coach Mike his last name, Mike "heard" the name as "Murphy", and called him "Murph" (probably because there was another Ryan on the team). This nickname went on for awhile until I guess Ryan's mother asked why they were calling him "Murph"...It was then learned that his name was WINFREY, but he was too polite to correct the coach, and has lived with the nickname "Murph" for all these years....love it!!

For my artist friends....have you ever been asked to paint something for someone and it just comes together so WELL that you wish you could keep the painting?? If I were to advertise myself as the baseball player painter, THIS little painting would be the one I would use in the ad...I LOVED painting it!