It’s not very often in your life where you stand on Mount Everest and then see another mountain that’s higher, but that happened to me on Thursday.

From a personal standpoint, the highlight of my career was in Kansas City three years ago. If you ever had the chance to see the Ken Burns series on baseball that PBS aired in the mid-nineties, you became instantly over-whelmed with Buck O’Neil. I watched that series while I was in my second senior year in college. I never thought I’d have the chance to meet Buck. About 8 years later, I took a job in KC where Buck used to play first base for the Kansas City Monarchs. In May of 2006, Buck came in studio with me and told stories for an hour on the air. When that show ended, I thought that would be the highlight of my career.

Through my time in KC, I found out how soccer balls helped saved the lives of our soldiers in Iraq. The soldiers would give Iraqi kids soccer balls and the townspeople began to trust the soldiers more. As the trust grew, soldiers learned about IED locations and Al-Qaeda hide-outs. I will always take great pride in the soccer ball drive but I was out on my own. My station never got behind me and I probably collected only 200 total soccer balls. Neither of these two events come close to what I witnessed Thursday.

Sports 620 KTAR organized and drove something close to me like I didn’t know was possible. There are a flood of people I could spend time thanking but if I do, I feel like I’m taking away something from you. What you did by donating over $200,000 was close to miracle status. I have never been so humbled and exhilarated at the same time.

I had a flood of emotions a couple months ago when I took a tour of Phoenix Children’s Hospital. I can’t look at a NICU without being over-whelmed with the old anxiety I would try to hide before I visited my daughter during her 95 day stay at a Dayton hospital eight years ago. It was last Tuesday that Allison from PCH told me kids are being sent to Las Vegas or LA from time to time. When I found out the reason was something as simple as space, it was a punch in the gut.

I was working in Alabama when Vienna was born in Dayton, OH. Jennifer moved in with my parents and we lived apart so she could be with Vienna. I would take off of work every Friday and drive 6 hours to the hospital every Thursday night and go back to Alabama on Sunday night. I couldn’t believe that anyone from Phoenix might have to do the same thing I did.

Put yourself in that position. You take your family to PCH and they say there’s no room. Are you going to Vegas. Does your wife live in a hotel and you come up on weekends? How’s that gas bill going to look? Are you going to move into the hotel too and try to work out your room? Are you pulling your sick child’s siblings out of school? It is the most lonely feeling to come home from work everyday while your daughter fights for her life hundreds of miles away. I couldn’t stand the idea of someone else going through what I did.

Because of you, we made a major dent in fixing those problems. For you to ignore gas prices, your declining home value, and saving for your own vacation to donate to this cause is amazing. I was floored when the donations reached $100,000 before lunch, but to double that shows the power of many. We didn’t receive any donation over $5,000. The vast majority of our donations were for $20. Fundraisers do not reach $200,000 on $20 donations unless an enormous number of people really believe in the need and their own community.

I realize my name is “on the door” since the event is titled “Doug & Wolf’s Big Pitch for PCH,” but we’re all on equal footing because I donated and you did too. It was OUR Big Pitch. Every time you hear someone talk about Sports 620 KTAR raising $200,000, tell them you were a part of that.

Thank you.

At the beginning of June, I wrote a blog about my prediction that June would be as bad as May for the D-Backs. I went so far as to keep track of the embarrassing season of Eric Byrnes.

As Byrnes is headed for the DL, it’s time to get the most recent check on the Eric Byrnes watch. Byrnes batted .286 last year. In the previous blog I mentioned at the top, Byrnes had to bat .328 in order for him to improve on last year’s season. In order for him to improve on last year’s average  the Byrnes watch has jumped 15 points to .343. If I’m being unfair to expect a player that had his salary doubled to improve his batting average by 2 points, I’m sorry to waste your time.

I could go on torching Byrnes for the rest of this column, but why? He’s a waste and an embarrassment in 2008. I want to stress 2008, however. His season isn’t going to get better. It’s clear that he thought he had it made. He worked as hard as he could to finally get that big contract and didn’t put the work in during the off-season to succeed. I don’t think that has anything to do with 2009. If he has any ounce of pride, he’ll bounce back and have a solid 2009 and 2010.

There were a lot of people in baseball that were never comfortable with Byrnes as their starting outfielder. He finally had his chance to prove everyone wrong. Here’s the numbers projected for the year: .209 (-.077), 14 HR’s (-7), 10 SB (-40…but don’t worry, he’s on pace to get caught 10x’s so that’s one stat up from last year), 68 runs (-35), 88K’s (at least that’s 10 below last year but he’s getting closer very quickly).

When you see those stats, tell me you believe that he put in full energy to the off-season to get ready for this year. I don’t see it. I see the typical player who fought to get the big contract and got it and didn’t have the same fight anymore. The true definition of Eric Byrnes will come next year. He’s already wasted this one.

Jennifer is going through the process of taking all of our vacation pictures off the camera. I had to share one of the pictures with you.

I know it’s easy to claim small world and all of us have amazing stories of coincidental meetings. I have to say this one was hard for me to believe.

First, my trip to New York was great. I had never been to Manhattan before. Most of you know what a nut I am for history so having a beer at Fraunces Tavern was just wonderful. I’m also deeply inspired by the stories of my past, the Franz’s and Moeller’s that came to this country, that led to my being an American in the first place so, the Statue of Liberty was a must see for me.

If you didn’t know, we went to NY for two reasons. The main reason was the chance of a lifetime for Jennifer. My wife sang at Carnegie Hall. As you can imagine, being married to a talk-show host, she’s always just “Doug’s wife.” She’s a very talented singer but never was able to develop her own career because she made the choice to marry me. The way my career started, there was no way that we could have stayed together while focusing equally on each career. It was a thrill for me to just sit back and be “Jennifer’s husband” while her patience and perseverance was rewarded.

The other reason we went is to see a game at Yankee Stadium. It was the 14th stadium I’ve ever been to see a game. Since this was the last year, I had to make a pilgrimage to see the park. I’m so glad I did. The tickets were expensive (over $400 for the four of us–section 257) but it was so worth it. To walk my family through the monuments and tell the girls the stories of Ruth, DiMaggio, and Gehrig was a great moment for a father. Although spending money and winning has a lot to do with the large fan base, it was easy to see why any kid falls in love with the Yankees.

Now, the small world shocker.

We were sitting in the second row from the walkway that separates the really expensive lower bowl seats and the expensive lower bowl seats. There was a woman sitting next to me wearing a white sweater. We were both keeping score and we struck up a conversation from time-to-time during the game. A few innings into the game, I noticed she had a D-Backs T-shirt on underneath the sweater. When I asked her about it she said she was from Tucson and a big D-Backs fan. Later she asked me what I did for a living. This became important when we met the guys sitting in front of her.

There was a group of eight guys sitting in front of her family and one of the guys was wearing a Suns hat. We asked the guys where they were from and they started rattling off Phoenix suburbs. She asked the guys if they knew who I was. Before I let her tell them, I asked them who their favorite talk show host in Phoenix was. Most of the guys said Dave Burns (keep in mind my trip occurred before the Burns Post photo shoot). When she told them who I was, the guys couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe in a stadium that holds well over 50K people, 16 people from Phoenix/Tuscon would all be sitting next to each other, let alone attending the same game.

Jennifer had all of us pose for a picture. Four of the guys were off getting beer. Tenaya is the woman I met. She’s above the bald head. I’m in the back right holding my daughters.

As we left, we were walking out of the stadium (we were actually in the tunnel that every stadium has 30 of that leads under the seats to the concession stands but I don’t know what you call that tunnel) and this man thanked his daughter for the tickets.

He was so proud that he turned to Jennifer and said, “My daughter took me to my first game at Yankee Stadium for father’s day.” She asked the guy where he was from. He said, “Glendale, Arizona. That’s where the Cardinals play and they have the Fiesta Bowl.”

The Celtics will lose the NBA Finals. I want them to win, but they won’t.

Kobe Bryant will tie the score at one.

Shaq is winning one-to-nothing as I write this.

My blog will be outdated in only a week when Kobe will equal Shaq’s total. Shaquille O’Neal has won one title without Kobe and Kobe hasn’t won any since he ran Shaq out of town. The pressure is squarely on the shoulders of Shaq to put himself back on top. Oh by the way, (BTW for my young crunk brothers) the Suns can win a championship if this happens. Shaq was a fun new toy last year. Now that toy needs to become practical. This might be a nightmare scenario for any Suns fan to accept but I think the chances for the Suns to win a title next year increase if the Lakers win this year. If Kobe can prove that he can win a title without Shaq, Shaq will have to re-take the lead. He can’t let Kobe have the last word. We all know that it’s sad that Shaq has to have a reason to be motivated, but he does so deal with it.

The more things work against Shaq, the better results. If the Celtics win, Shaq will mostly go through the motions. If Celtics lose, the media will glorify the rise, fall, and rise of Kobe. Shaq will not be what he was because the Lakers won without him. He must show Jerry Buss and Kobe they were wrong and the only way he can do that is win a championship. I refuse to say, “Go Lakers,” but it will be the driving force behind a championship for the Suns.

I was a single parent this weekend. Jennifer went to Ohio to see our new-born nephew and I had the girls for the weekend.

It was very easy weekend as long as it’s OK to have sandwiches, fish sticks, chicken strips, and frozen pizza. We watched “Raiders of the Lost Ark” on Friday, played all day and went to the Rattlers game on Saturday, church and waterpark on Sunday and went to get Mommy from the airport on Monday.

I didn’t get any work done during the weekend but had a wonderful time just being dad. I crammed on Monday to read and watch everything I had missed. I’m still amazed Byrnes hit a GS. If I hadn’t heard it on the radio, (Sports 620 KTAR, of course) I wouldn’t have believed what I was reading.

The Eric Byrnes watch is up to .328. What is Byrnes watch? That’s the batting average he has to have for the rest of the year in order to improve on last year’s batting average. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a player that had his salary doubled and guaranteed for three years to improve his game. Right now, Byrnes is trending down in every statistical category except for doubles and strikeouts. He is pacing to have 2 more doubles than last year but his strike-outs are also up.

After the series with the Giants, the D-Backs don’t play an NL West team until the 4th of July weekend. It’s their worst nightmare. The D-Backs struggle on the road and they’ve only beaten the Astros and Tigers in a series outside of the decision (and in case you didn’t know, they won those series at Chase Field). The D-Backs are 10-16 outside their division and 11-13 on the road. Now they have to address both issues. The D-Backs are 3-10 on the road outside their division. Hopefully there’s a positive since they won two in Atlanta because Friday’s win was the first in the “road+outside division” category since opening day.

An MLB schedule is always difficult to put together. Some teams share facilities or at least share parking lots with an NFL team and they need to plan accordingly in August and September. Other teams know of major events in their city. Sometimes those events are in conjunction with the team—Patriot Day in Boston—or the team wants to get the heck out-of-town because they don’t want to deal with headaches from a major event in town.

The D-Backs have a difficult situation. The heat of June and July puts a lot of fans on the road leaving town. However, it’s when kids are out of school and normally attendance for most teams spike during the summer months. I think it’s time for the D-Backs to stay home in the summer more often. I think this June road trip could send the team into a massive swoon. If I’m wrong, this team will make the World Series.