The Story from APM

One Yankee fan...and his son

Friday, October 09 2009

One Yankee Fan...and his son

Freddy Schuman (top), Cliff Schuman

Freddy Schuman has become a minor celebrity. He's the unofficial mascot of the New York Yankees.  At nearly every game, he bangs pots and pans, and revs up the crowd. But this spring, the Yankees refused to let "Freddy Sez" into the team's shiny new stadium. He was forced to beg outside the gate for fans to give him a spare ticket. Suddenly the papers were writing about how the Yankees had locked out this dedicated octogenarian. 

The press was good for two reasons.  First, Freddy was allowed back into games without a ticket. And he reconnected with his estranged son. Cliff Schuman is more into yoga than baseball, and hadn't seen or heard from his dad in nearly 20 years. As the Yankees compete in the playoffs, Freddy and Cliff join Dick Gordon to tell about their unlikely reunion.

• Watch the YouTube video of Freddy that first aired on No Mas TV

Listening to Chris

Chris Mueller-Medlicott

Polly Medlicott didn't know much about cerebral palsy when she brought her son, Christian, home from the hospital. As he got older, Chris was unable to speak, walk, feed himself, or even sit up. Until he was a young teenager, Polly assumed Chris was also mentally disabled. Then she began to work with researchers who trained Chris on a form of facilitated communication that seemed to work. Polly became convinced her son Chris was smart and understood much more of what was happening around him than she thought. Polly talks with Dick about her regrets as a mother, and what she's doing now to keep other parents from making the mistakes she thinks she made.

• Learn about A New Kind of Listening, a film about Chris and an unusual theater project
• See pictures of Polly and Chris