Mark Gilroy

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Farewell Cinderella: A Father’s Love for His Daughter

Oh I will dance with Cinderella
I don’t want to miss even one song
’cause all too soon the clock
will strike midnight
and she’ll be gone

About a year ago we got a call from a local Nashville music agent. He wanted to tell us about a new song written by Steven Curtis Chapman called Cinderella and to discuss the idea of a gift book by that same name. We absolutely loved the song and the concept and last January released Cinderella: The Love of a Daddy and His Princess to coincide with the radio release of the song. What a great tribute to a father’s love.

I had the air knocked out of me on the way to work this morning when I received a call with the news that Steven’s youngest daughter, Maria, was killed in a tragic accident last night.

It’s been hard not to be tearful today – and I haven’t succeeded. First of all I’m a father and I can’t begin to imagine the heartache Steven and his family are experiencing right now. As a publisher, I know he poured his heart into the words of the song and the pages of the book. A major inspiration for the lyrics was Steven and his wife Mary Beth’s profound love for their children – and all children. They founded Shaohannah’s Hope, a foundation that assists families hoping to adopt with information and financial grants – and named after the first daughter they brought into their family from China. Maria, the youngest, was also adopted from China and her beautiful smiling face sparkles throughout the book.

The name of Steven’s latest album is This Moment … and at a moment like this, I wish I had words of wisdom. There simply are none. St. Paul said that the only things that endure are faith, hope, and love, and never is that more evident than in a moment like this. Our deepest prayers and love are with the Chapmans.

Farewell Cinderella.

 

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Dog Days of Summer: How I Lost That Loving Feeling for Baseball

Too many strikes, too much free agency - baseball is dead to me.

I have fallen out of love with baseball.

Yes, the dog days of summer are here. That means basketball, a winter sport indigenous to the U.S., is just starting their championship series. And that hockey, another winter sport, but this one transplanted to frigid regions of the U.S. like Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, and LA, just crowned a new champion. But as the seconds tick off on the NBA Series between the Lakers and the Celtics, what it really means is that we’re officially entering the dead period before football season starts.

Some sports purists just sat up a little straighter. Say what? Don’t you know it’s baseball season!

True. Baseball is still America’s pastime, particularly if you live in Boston or NYC and can outspend the rest of the league (combined) in the quest for tactical superiority and garnering every spot on the All Star team. But football is America’s passion. And so for the rest of us, excluding St. Louis fans who support their Cards no matter what, Chicago some years (or for certain proud masochistic Cubs fans, every year), and one Cinderella-story elsewhere in America, we just don’t care. Sure, we’ll watch a game or two before the season is over, but the second game depends on whether women’s bowling or billiards (or some combination of those two sports) is in reruns yet.

Just for context, I didn’t grow up with anything but love for baseball. I was born in Dayton, Ohio, about 45 miles north of Cincinnati, and was there when the Big Red Machine terrorized opposing pitchers. (My rookie year as a 5-year-old fan at old Crosley Field was Pete Rose’s rookie year as a player.) I was in Kansas City for most of the George Brett era and attended a minimum of 20-something games a year.

But something happened. It’s not just that the clubs I like started losing. You expect success to be cyclical in sports, unless you’re a Cubs fan, of course. (Sorry for that second gratuitous shot at the Cubbies in one article.) With the explosion of free agency, I discovered I didn’t know half the guys on “my team” from one season to the next. I could have lived with some rebuilding years with a young exciting roster of “our guys”, but once-proud franchises like the Royals and Reds became development squads for the deep pocketed coastal teams. Throw in a couple of strikes, including one that accomplished something that not even Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany could pull off – shutting down a World Series – and I was gone as a fan. I think forever.

So you’re pretty mad at baseball? You probably think I’m a hater. Nope. The problem is not that I got mad at baseball but that I simply stopped caring a decade ago. And despite publicity gimmicks like the Red Sox winning the World Series and biannual Congressional Steroids hearings, I’ve lost that loving feeling.

It might be Kevin Garnett with a follow up monster jam or Kobe Bryant with an acrobatic mid-air spin move with a reverse lay up that ends the NBA Finals. But whoever does it sometime in the next 10 days or so, all I can say is it’s almost time for football!