Tyler Kepner has a profile (with family photos) of Shelley Duncan. He also has a bit extra on his blog with Shelley's feelings about Mark McGwire.

Generations of hitters know the coach Charley Lau for his theories on arm extension through the strike zone. Duncan remembers how much Lau loved cookies. When Lau was in the hospital fighting cancer, he shared his cookies with the Duncan boys. Shelley was 4 when Lau died.

That was during the White Sox years, when Duncan toddled around on Family Day and marveled at the fireworks over old Comiskey Park. He was 6 when La Russa and his father were fired, and he was so distraught that his father took him along for the drive home to Tucson. Chris and their mother, Jeanine, flew ahead.

“Shelley was really upset about it, and I wanted to kind of calm him down,” Dave Duncan said. “We were about halfway there and we’re listening to the radio, and a report comes on that says the manager in Oakland was fired. Shelley said: ‘Dad, we’ve got to call those people! That’d be perfect!’ ”