sloopjohnc wrote:I don't know how anyone else was on here as a baseball fan at nine years old, but I loved sports with an awakening of all the possibilities and history with the sports I loved. Kinda like music turned out to be, in fact.
A young boy in Santa Rosa is a diehard A's fan and wrote this letter to the A's after his family's house burned down. The A's President, Dave Kaval, happened to catch the reporter's tweet and report and has put his feelers out to help the boy. I can imagine myself writing a letter like this myself. In fact, I did write letters like this to my sports heroes.
Here's the story. . .
Loren’s letter, written in pencil on lined stationery, with bold strokes and descriptive flair, was picked up and tweeted out Saturday by Katie Utehs of ABC7. It caught the attention of A’s President Dave Kaval, who had spent much of the week responding to fans reaching out to him via social media, describing their own travails with the calamitous fires. Kaval promised to outfit the Smith family with new A’s gear, and from there a country’s kindness went viral.
“That just set off a whole kind of domino effect with other people responding,” Kaval said in a phone interview Tuesday. “It really shows the power of sports.”
Offers of help and goods came from all around the baseball landscape — from the Tampa Bay Rays, the New York Mets, the Detroit Tigers, the Colorado Rockies, the Houston Astros, the San Diego Padres, the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Seattle Mariners. From MLB’s Players Alumni Association came a tweeted photo of gifts on their way to Loren, signed baseballs and pictures and, especially cool, a Steven Vogt bobblehead.
Sports memorabilia company Topps put together a snazzy package of stuff for Loren to help rebuild his collection. Retired pitcher Dan Haren, who played for the A's from 2005-2007, put together a box of goodies. “People are driving to the Coliseum and dropping off old baseball cards, their Jose Canseco jerseys, so many great things,” Kaval said. “We’ve become a clearinghouse for people who just want to do a nice thing for Loren. He’s just a boy who loves a sport, and something about that really resonates.”