This story was excerpted from Scott Merkin’s White Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CHICAGO -- Phyllis Merkin is the greatest woman I know.

Don’t bother arguing with me. I understand every one of you has great mothers, the most important, thankless, loving, rewarding and painful job all rolled into one. But to paraphrase the immortal Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, they might be as good as Phyllis Merkin, but none are better.

She’s also the toughest person I know, and she doesn’t realize that fact to be true.

Our mom always was a tiny but forceful ball of energy at a slender 5-foot-1. She was driving me and my brothers to baseball or Bar Mitzvah lessons when we were younger, while also working as a teacher -- and in later years, volunteering at the Illinois Holocaust Museum. She was there for us through graduations, relationships, breakups, marriages, kids, first jobs, next jobs and just as a wonderful form of support or a general sounding board, although she did stop my conversations more than a few times to tell me she wanted to go watch the news.

Hey, who could blame her? I talk too much.

There are very few women I know of her age -- and she turned a blessed 88 in September -- who know as much about sports. She also is not a fan with rose-colored glasses.

During those moments when Michigan lost in football to that school from Ohio in recent years, I would usually hear the following during our ensuing phone calls:

“So, Michigan lost by a lot?” she would ask.

“They did,” I would angrily respond.

“That’s not good. What’s wrong with them?” she would add, drawing a laugh from me.

Don’t get me started concerning her thoughts on Chicago baseball. But she also was there with congratulations when Michigan went 15-0 this past season and won the national title, as if I played on the team.

Sadly, her life changed in 2018, when she was in a car accident with my dad. As best we can remember, mom had three surgeries in her life up until '18, which were to give birth to the three of us. That number has grown exponentially since the accident. She is a medical marvel to go through what she did, and she’s still a voracious reader and as sharp as a tack mentally.

That’s the great news. The bad news is, being as aware as she is, my mom also understands her physical limitations and the pain they cause her every day. She was feeling that pain when I visited her on Wednesday, which was crushing for me to see.

In fact, on my way home as I sat in Chicago traffic, mom called to apologize for not being a better host because she wasn’t feeling great. Her call made me smile -- because that’s the caring woman she is -- and cry at the same time.

I haven’t visited my mom nearly as much as I should have over the past few years, because it’s unbearable to see this unbelievably sweet woman who is the reason for everything good in me go through such brutal times. This is not about me, though, and my mindset needs to change.

For now, I want to celebrate Phyllis Merkin on Mother’s Day. I want to thank her for all she’s done, all she’s sacrificed, and even the neuroses I’ve inherited from her. Hey, nobody is perfect.

But Phyllis Merkin is pretty darn close.