Dubin, Dodo -- vis-à-vis Durbin Shutout

When the name on the back of Durbin's uniform first appeared on the TV screen this afternoon while he pitched for the Phillies I smiled at his name. His name always reminds me of Dubin and Dodo, two toy donkeys I bought for my little girls one Christmas Eve at the pharmacy in King of Prussia, PA.

Have I reminded the"girls" lately (now themselves mothers of grown children) of Dubin and Dodo?

It was December 24th of 1963 and we were broke. A check from a relative came in the mail, and we went that evening to the drug store (the only thing open late that night) and spent some of the money getting a Christmas together. Candy canes, some sparkly things, and then there were these two gray stuffed creatures marked down to nearly nothing-- one was a donkey on wheels and the other was a donkey just sitting flat on the floor, both meant to be "ridden" so to speak. The girls were two years old and about four months old and that's what we got them for Christmas.

The donkeys got named by the three-year old, of course, and it took a while for the baby to grow into the flat-on-the-floor one, but the wheeled Dubin and Dodo became VIP's in our house, and lasted amazingly long.

So when J.D. Durbin of the Phillies pitched a shutout against the Padres this evening I got a warm feeling under my t-shirt. His triumph is linked in my head to more than the Phillies winning ball games. His name reminds me of certain other winners that my grown children surely remember still being around. And I hope when J.D.Durbin gets tattered and a bit bent up during his career, he feels half as appreciated as Dubin and Dodo.

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