Feb. 27--When I read that the newborn daughter of Ald. Ameya Pawar, 47th, has the middle name "Koufax" after Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax, I thought it was evidence of a bravura if curious geek-dad move.
Yes, Koufax was great -- a three-time Cy Young Award winner and four-time Major League Baseball strikeout leader -- and Pawar was an obsessive baseball fan as a kid.
But Koufax played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Pawar grew up a Cubs fan in Chicago and Des Plaines. And Koufax retired in 1966, 14 years before Pawar was born.
So for his daughter to be named Sigalit Koufax Epstein-Pawar suggested to me a level of sports fanaticism reminiscent of the 1982 movie "Diner," in which one of the characters plans to call off his engagement if his fiancee can't pass a 140-question trivia quiz on the history of the Baltimore Colts.
I called him to ask how that naming conversation had gone with his wife, Charna: But honey, Koufax threw four no-hitters and led the National League in ERA in five out of his 11 years!
"It was her idea," Pawar said.
Charna Epstein is Jewish, and Koufax, also a Jew, remains a hero in that faith community not so much for what he did on the mound but for what he didn't do, which was start the first game of the 1965 World Series.
Oct. 6, 1965, when the Dodgers were scheduled to open the best-of-seven series with the Minnesota Twins, fell on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Though Koufax was not otherwise particularly observant, he had a clause in his contract that said he didn't have to play on Yom Kippur.
"He was heavily criticized for not pitching that game, but he held firm," Pawar said. "Talk to any Jewish family, especially from the older generation, and he's an icon to them because of the commitment and courage he showed."
It only adds to the legend that the Dodgers lost the opener but came back to win the series, with Koufax striking out 10 Twins in a complete-game victory in Game 7.
The alderman said he also admires Koufax, now 80, for retiring at the peak of his game "and not letting any one thing define who he is." Though it was arthritic pain and not a desire for drama that inspired Koufax to quit after a sensational 1966 season, Pawar said he sees in Koufax's long life after baseball an admirable commitment to having an identity independent of his job, something he wishes for his daughter.
At the very least, her mother and father have given young Sigalit great material for first-date conversations when she reaches that age. Which, as the father of a now-grown daughter -- whose middle name, Claire, is not a salute to 1950s-era National League catcher Ebba St. Claire -- I can assure them will come faster than they expect.
A handy handout
My colleague Mary Schmich's heartwarming front-page column Friday about the reunion of a former expressway off-ramp panhandler and his frequent benefactor spoke to the power of small acts of generosity and the possibilities of redemption.
It also confirmed my darkest suspicions. Nic Romano, who turned his life around and now holds two restaurant jobs, told Schmich he often earned $150 a day walking among cars with his hand out, and that he spent most of that money to feed his heroin addiction.
Not that his was an easy or enviable life, but a minimum-wage employee, a presumptive contributor to society, has to work more than 18 hours to earn $150 before taxes. Who wants to support the handout way? Or to support the socially poisonous illegal drug market?
My wife, who, like many of us, feels conflicted when approached by those who appear down on their luck, used to hand out fast-food coupons instead of cash. But was that really helping?
She asked our friend and neighbor Doug Fraser, executive director of The Chicago Help Initiative, a not-for-profit organization that assists the homeless and the poor.
"A lightbulb went on for me," Fraser told me later. "You want to show kindness, but you don't want to enable bad habits. What are you supposed to do?"
Fraser came up with the idea for a foldable, pocket-size resource guide printed on durable paper that lists where and when to get free meals and groceries, how to find emergency shelters and clinics and which agencies assist those in need in their search for jobs and housing.
"All that information was available but not in one place," Fraser said. So with the aid of the Chicago Loop Alliance and the Magnificent Mile Charitable Foundation, the Help Initiative last summer designed and printed 12,000 such guides. They're nearly all gone, but 15,000 copies of an updated guide are on order.
I imagined that panhandlers would react to being handed information instead of spare change with the sort of snarling or sarcastic response with which they'd react to being handed a Bible tract. But Fraser said no, not so far. They've been grateful.
"The guides have no street value, but they're more useful than a dollar if you're looking for a hot meal and places to help you get off the street," he said.
If you're not, if you're looking for something else, well, sorry to be coldhearted about it but try the next car.
To get copies of the resource guide, go to chicagohelpinitiative.org.
Re: Tweets
@ericsshadow, no relation, won this week's reader poll for Tweet of the Week with this timely observation: "I hear all these Trump supporters saying they support him because he speaks his mind. Well you know who else speaks his mind? My 4-year-old."
The runner-up, from @Elizasoul80, was also darkly amusing: "I'm gonna die surrounded by my loved ones," she wrote. "But it'll just be me choking on food and no one noticing because they're staring at their phones."
