American Heart Association Fundraiser Gives You Chance to Live Out Your Baseball Dream While Helping Others Live Out Their Life

You love baseball. I mean, you LOVE baseball. You play catch with a buddy when you’re having a beer. You still play in a league. (Ok, maybe it’s softball now because the years have started to add up on you, but still.) You follow the Phillies religiously. Hell, you even watch a few innings of a Little League game when you walk by one and you don’t know a single kid on either team.

So, what if I told you that you can have your dream come true? You know which dream. You dig your back foot into the ground at home plate at Citizens Bank Park, cocking a bat above your shoulder just like Howard and Utley and Rollins.  A pitch is delivered. Your lumber meets leather with a crack.  You hit in a major league ballpark.

That would be the greatest thing in the world, right?*

Wrong.

There's nothing better than swinging lumber in an MLB park.

It gets better.

You can fulfill that dream and help people live at the same time. A great moment in your life will give life to others.

On May 6 & 7, the American Heart Association will hold their 16^th Annual Richie Ashburn Home Runs for Heart fundraiser on the field at Citizens Bank Park.  This incredible event ($400 per individual and $1,500 per team of four) is a must-do for any baseball fan, allows participants the opportunity to swing at ten pitches from  home plate, win prizes—and bragging rights—for best hitting performances, and shag fly balls in the outfield.  

Sure, the Phanatic bounces around, there are tours of the ballpark and the Phillies ball girls will be there, but this is about hitting and fielding where the big boys hit and field. This is the dream of every one of you who, like me, keeps a baseball glove in your car.

And those people you’ll be helping? Those aren’t faceless, nameless statistics. They aren’t even the overweight, middle-aged guys you’re thinking of when you think of heart attacks. It’s a guy like Derek Fitzgerald, a local guy I had the pleasure of learning about last Wednesday at this year’s Media Day who was active and healthy and still needed a heart transplant when he was 30 years old due to a heart condition. And thanks to the procedures and care made possible by the American Heart Association, he’s running road races and gearing up for an Iron Man competition this fall.  When we help guys like Derek, we’re helping ourselves.

Take it from me, hitting and fielding in major league ballpark is every bit as great as you always thought it would be. I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in Home Runs for Heart’s Media Day for several years now and stepping between those chalk lines never fails to overwhelm me. Back in 2008, which seems like a lifetime ago, I was named “Best Hitting Print Journalist” in Philly. Even though I haven’t had a sniff of that title since, I still clear my schedule a year in advance to hear my name announced over the PA system, to knock a few balls into left field, and to trot on that spongy, perfect outfield grass and feel a fly ball pop into my glove.

So come out to the Richie Ashburn Home Runs for Heart fundraiser. Better yet, put a team of your buddies together and have the time of your life.

You’ll be adding time to the life of others like Derek.

Oh, and don’t worry about that line about your lumber meeting leather with a crack. The ting of aluminum is acceptable as well.

Details: To learn more or to sign up, go to heart.org/phillywalk or call 215-575-5218.

*Your wedding day and the birth of your child/children are the greatest non-baseball things you’ll ever experience of course. Hi darling!

(This story also ran in the Center City Weekly Press.)