2005: Poor, pregnant Linda produced a champion

Strike four.

But Linda didn't whiff. Somewhere deep in that troubled plot lived a spirit that longed to soar.

Linda aspired for a better life.

She always was a worker. She cleaned houses and baby sat and then fooled the manager at Kentucky Fried Chicken into hiring her at age 13.

When Linda got pregnant, her mother told her to get an abortion. Instead, Linda decided to keep the baby and was kicked out of the house. So she married her boyfriend, the father of the child.

Linda worked days at J.C. Penney's and helped her husband deliver newspapers at night. But he was a boy trying to live a man's life, and he hit her, and soon enough, she moved out.

So much for that better life. Except for that little dash of sunshine who had come along.

Linda had wanted a girl. She was going to name it Erica, after the character on All My Children. But then came this rambunctious little boy who melted her heart. She named him after a Dallas Cowboy; he was the best thing in her life and she let him know it.

She danced her baby around the room to a Marvin Gaye tune, "You gave me a reason for living ... taught me the meaning of giving..."