re: OT 'ard excellence matrix

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Calling someone with a physical disability "cripple" is like calling a black the "n" word

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Veeck lost half of one leg to an injury he sustained while in the Marines in World War II, a broken bone complicated by a series of infections. He spent the last 40 years of his life with a wooden leg.

Not that it slowed him down much. Two years after he lost half a leg, he led Cleveland to that World Series title. Eleven years after that, he got the Chicago White Sox to the Series, too. Twenty years after that, he was still active as a major league owner and gadfly to stuffed shirts everywhere. As he put it:

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I’m absolutely convinced of one thing. A cripple cannot coddle himself. Once you coddle yourself, you’re admitting you can’t do what anybody else can do and then you’re through. Coddling yourself is a way of apologizing for yourself, and I am darned if I will apologize for anything beyond my control.

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Veeck’s use of the word “cripple” instead of “handicapped” is on purpose. According to Webster (via Veeck), a cripple is “a lame or partly disabled person” — it describes a condition. But “handicapped” means “to place at a disadvantage” — it describes capability, and Veeck refused to accept any limitation on his capabilities that he didn’t absolutely have to.

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