YOUTH DINNER

WINTER 2015
YOUTH DINNER
2015
16th LEGENDS FOR
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PL AYERS
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
AN EVENING OF HONOR, CELEBRATION AND CHARITY
BROOKS ROBINSON AND ADAM JONES
POSE WITH A DINNER GUEST
JOHN FRANCO AND MOOKIE WILSON
RANDY NIEMANN, JOHN STEARNS AND RICH HAND
MUDCAT GRANT AND BRIAN MCRAE
CURRENT PLAYERS JAMES MCCANN, BRANDON CRAWFORD, ADAM JONES, ANTHONY RIZZO AND DJ LEMAHIEU
*photos from 2015 Heart and Hustle Award presentations
A PUBLICATION OF THE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYERS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
BASEBALL ALUMNI NEWS
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Telephone: 1-800-336-5272
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MLBPAA Board of Directors
Jim Hannan – Chairman
Fred Valentine – Vice Chairman
Sandy Alderson, John Doherty,
Denny Doyle, Brian Fisher, Joseph Garagiola,
Jr., Doug Glanville, Jim “Mudcat” Grant,
Rich Hand, Mike Myers, Steve Rogers,
Jim Sadowski, Jose Valdivielso
MLBPAA Officers
President
Brooks Robinson
Vice Presidents
Bob Boone, George Brett,
Carl Erskine, Al Kaline,
Rusty Staub, Robin Yount,
Fred Valentine – Secretary/Treasurer
Brian Fisher – Assistant Secretary
Sam Moore – Asst. Sec and Legal Counsel
David Mindell – Asst. Legal Counsel
MLAM Board of Directors
Jim Poole – Chairman
Jerry Moses – Chairman Emeritus
Bill Bray, Orestes Destrade John Doherty,
Noah Garden, Evan Kaplan, Al Leiter,
Brian McRae, Ethan Orlinsky, Andy Parton,
Brooks Robinson
MLAM Officers
Tom Seaver – President
Fergie Jenkins – Vice President
Dave Winfield – Vice President
Sam Moore – Legal Counsel,
Secretary/Treasurer
David Mindell – Asst. Secretary
MLAS Officers
Craig Skok – Chairman
Eddie Robinson – President
Steve Rogers – Secretary/Treasurer
Photos courtesy MLBPAA
2
RIZZO NAMED HEART & HUSTLE WINNER
AT MLBPAA DINNER
JONES, VALENTINE, ERSKINE AMONG NIGHT’S OTHER HONOREES
By Mark Newman / MLB.com
TAKE A LOOK AT VIDEOS
FROM THE 2015 LEGENDS
FOR YOUTH DINNER!
NEW YORK - This time, the Heart
& Hustle Award was accepted with a
heavy heart.
“Baseball lost a player today, Tommy
Hanson,” Cubs first baseman Anthony
Rizzo told a hushed audience at the
Major League Baseball Players Alumni
Association’s 16th annual Legends
for Youth Dinner on Tuesday, Nov.
10 at Capitale. “I didn’t know him
personally, but I know a lot of people
did. He was family. Losing anyone at 29,
losing anyone in general, but 29 years of
age ... I want to wish him to rest in peace
and gratitude for his family.”
That is how Rizzo began his
acceptance speech as the top overall
Heart & Hustle Award winner,
speaking on behalf of the game itself.
Rizzo’s award was announced at the
dinner, and his words reflected the
state of shock players were still in
around baseball over the news of
Hanson’s passing less than 24 hours
earlier. It was amid that sadness that
such matters as award presentations
and fundraising went on, like the
game itself.
In addition to Rizzo’s award, Orioles
center fielder Adam Jones was
presented with the Brooks Robinson
Community Service Award by the
award’s namesake himself, and
former manager Bobby Valentine and
Dodgers legend Carl Erskine were
given Lifetime Achievement Awards.
Robinson, the longtime MLBPAA
president and Hall of Famer, accepted
for the latter award on Erskine’s behalf
due to late travel complications that
prevented Erskine from leaving Indiana.
Attendees included individual Heart
& Hustle team winners Brandon
Crawford of the Giants, DJ LeMahieu
of the Rockies and James McCann
of the Tigers, and a long list of
legends, including Robinson, Phil
Niekro, Dale Murphy, John Franco
and Mudcat Grant. The event drew
38 players who accounted for 371
seasons and more than 25,600 games,
and proceeds went to the Legends
for Youth Baseball Clinics, a series of
free clinics designed to provide children
with positive role models, teaching
fundamentals and promoting the sport.
Rizzo talked about playing the game
the right way -- as he did in leading
the Cubs to a National League
Championship Series appearance and
finishing his season with 31 homers,
101 RBIs, an .899 OPS and gritty
play such as the highlight when he
teetered on a tarp roll at Wrigley Field
and held on for a dramatic catch
before going into the stands.
“We have a very young team in
Chicago, and I don’t know how I got
old,” Rizzo said. “I’m the older one on
the team now with a lot of younger
players. I tell them every day, ‘There’s
some little kid who’s been waiting to
come to this game for probably four,
five or six months, he got Christmas
WINTER 2015
presents to come to Wrigley Field on July
21, dog days of summer, and they’re looking
forward to seeing me play, you play, him
play, anyone play with a Cubs jersey on.’
a good season except for an August
nosedive, and on the subject of major
free-agency issues, that could mean
Chris Davis, Darren O’Day and/or Matt
Wieters departing, Jones said, “It’s not
“With the platform we’re on, it doesn’t
going to be easy -- it’s economics, what
matter what the name is on the back,
we represent a lot more than that. That’s can you afford, what are you willing to
what I try to do every day. There’s a little spend? I know that they’ve loved the
kid coming to the field, and if I have an organization, and the organization treated
0-for-4 game, if I’m 0-for-21, that little them good. But if you reach six years, you
create your own opportunities.
kid doesn’t know that. Maybe his dad
does, and doesn’t like me very much at
“I wish them all the best, and whoever
the time. But that little kid, when you
comes back to my team, I love you
pop up a ball and his coach tells him to more. If you don’t, I’m not going to like
run it out every time, and he sees one
you too much.”
of the guys in the Major Leagues not
Valentine brought along a contingent
running the ball out, that’s not going to from Sacred Heart University in
set the right example.”
Fairfield, Conn., where he is athletic
Jones, who had received the players union’s
prestigious Marvin Miller Man of the
Year Award a night earlier, found a perfect
way to complete his evening. During the
live auction toward the end of the dinner,
Robinson came back on stage to hold up
his own autographed No. 5 Orioles jersey,
and Jones was the winning bidder at the
front table for $1,000.
“It means a great deal,” Jones said.
“Brooks is one of the biggest pillars
in Baltimore, and he’s even more
famous than Cal Ripken in Baltimore.
It just means I’m giving back to the
community. I went back and looked
at what Brooks did in his career, and
he just did it unselfishly. He just did it
because impacting the youth and giving
back is the right thing to do.
“This is our job. This is what we love to
do. We have a responsibility not just to
ourselves, but to the community that
supports us. I’m just trying to spread
knowledge. It’s really easy to give back if
you want to do it.”
Jones said he thought the Orioles had
director. His award was presented by his
former Mets teammate and roommate
Tom Grieve, who, as the Rangers’
general manager in the 1980s, hired
him as manager for a long association
that brought new respect in Texas.
Valentine was a first-round Draft
pick by the Dodgers in 1968, and he
reached the Majors in just one year
thanks largely to a crucial managerial
lesson taught him by legendary Tommy
Lasorda as a 19-year-old Rookie League
prospect in Ogden, Utah. During a road
trip to Spokane, Wash., Lasorda had
been told by his coach that the pitchers
didn’t want to pitch if the young
Valentine was going to play shortstop.
“Tommy immediately called a
clubhouse meeting, in this little rickety
clubhouse in Spokane and had us all
sit in front of our lockers. He started
pacing back and forth. Then he said, ‘I
hear we have a problem. The problem is
the pitchers on this team don’t want to
pitch when that kid is playing
shortstop.’ Now I’m fast-forwarding in
my mind, thinking two things could be
said next. One of them could be, ‘Don’t
worry about it, because he’s going to
A-ball where he belongs.’ And two is,
‘It’s none of your business, he’s playing
shortstop, go out there and pitch.’
“Well, instead of A or B, he said, ‘I’m
going into my office. I want all the
players on this team to grab a pencil
and a paper, and I want you to go over
in front of that kid’s locker and get his
autograph, because when he’s in the
Major Leagues, you’ll be carrying his
lunchbucket somewhere and telling
your kids that you played with Bobby
Valentine in 1969.’
“It’s incredible that he did that. What he
showed me when I was a 19-year-old kid
was, if a manager believed in his players,
his players could do incredible things. I
tried to bring that lesson through my 23
years of managing, and tried to get my
players to believe that I believed.”
Yankees broadcaster Suzyn Waldman
emceed the event, and at one point,
she stopped to alert the crowd that
Crawford, the Giants’ shortstop, had
just won an NL Gold Glove Award.
Crawford stood and waved in response.
During the cocktail reception beforehand,
he was reminded that an even-numbered
year is approaching for the Giants, who
won titles in 2010, ‘12 and ‘14.
“We have some good competition,”
Crawford said. “I was just telling
Anthony Rizzo, we need to figure out
a way to beat them next year if we’re
going to win another one. There are a
lot of teams with good, young players.
We definitely have a shot. If we make
some moves that I think we are going to
make this offseason, and the core guys
we have on our team, I think we have a
good shot.”
A PUBLICATION OF THE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYERS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
3
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MLBPAA Mission Statement
To promote the game of baseball,
raise money for charity, inspire and
educate youth through positive
sport images and protect the
dignity of the game through former
Major League players.
In his Heart and Hustle Award acceptance speech, Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo thanked
former players and said “Without you guys setting the path for all of us players now, we would not be
here. You all deserve a round of applause. Without the strikes, without everything you guys have set for
us players today…we wouldn’t be able to do it without you. Thank you very much”
A PUBLICATION OF THE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYERS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION