Our Time At Trailblazers Academy

Our day of the Baseball Boycott started out perfectly. Stacey and I were fortunate enough to receive an invite from Domus to host a "Baseball Day" at the Trailblazers Academy in the morning. We spent a little time in the class talking about the lessons you can learn from baseball, sports, and the negative steroid scandal and then we hit the field to play some ball! Thankfully, our friend and amazing photographer Rich Freeda was on hand and kind enough to take some pictures. Take a look at our day in photos. We are eternally grateful to Rich for the pictures.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

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The Day Is Here

It's April 17th and we sure hope you didn't watch the Yankee game tonight or plan on watching any others this evening...we're sure not! We hope you chose to volunteer today or donate a little bit of money.

Our Baseball Day events at the Trailblazer Academy this morning (pictured above with the class) and the Chester Addison Community Center this afternoon were a huge hit with the kids. We have great photos and videos from each stop that we'll be posting up soon.

Thanks so much to everyone who joined us in the effort. We'll post a more aticulate thank you, but we just wanted to send a quick one as we wrap up the activities here at the Chester Addison Community Center.

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Four Days And Counting...

Greetings to everyone visiting our site today thanks to the latest media features about our initiative. If you haven't seen these yet, check out the Connecticut Post and Jersey Journal articles.

And please don't forget that we're looking for volunteers to spend a few hours at Domus in Stamford on Friday giving baseball clinics with the kids. Click here for more information.

Please make a pledge to join our effort!

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Baseball Fans Give Back

If you are as fed up as we are about baseball players taking steroids then we ask you to join us. We’re giving up big league baseball for one day to give back to our communities.

Join our cause and pledge to boycott big league baseball on April 17th.

We believe baseball has made a mockery of itself and shown a disrespect to us - the fans - thanks to its mishandling of the steroids issue. So this movement has one goal:

Turn this sad chapter in the history of the GAME into a positive chapter for our COMMUNITIES.

Here's how…

We will boycott baseball for just one day in honor of Roberto Clemente. We chose April 17th because it was the date in 1954 that Clemente – a real hero – made his big league debut. We have decided to give the time and/or money we would have spent on the game that day over to more worthwhile causes.

We are sick of hearing about which multi-millionaire spoiled brat is injecting himself with drugs to overcome "the pressure" of their $250 million contract. Alex Rodriguez thinks he faces pressure? Let Rodriguez try to pay a mortgage, health care expenses and education costs for his family of four after losing his factory job. Rodriguez would be begging to return to “the pressure” of his life as the third baseman for the New York Yankees in a matter of hours.

We are frustrated and angry that the game we love has been overrun by cheaters who have no touch with reality. And this is why we started the Baseball Fans Give Back movement.

On April 17th we will make the following pledges and ask that you join us for one, two, three or all four of them:

1. Refuse to go to one of the 15 big league baseball games being held on April 17th. Let them play all 15 games in front of empty seats.


2. Refuse to watch the television broadcast of one of the 15 big league baseball games being held on April 17th. Let them play for themselves - the only people they care about anyway.


3. Pledge to spend three hours giving back to your community by volunteering on April 17th. We are asking you to spend three hours volunteering because that is the average length of a big league baseball game.


4. Pledge to donate $13 to a charity or other non-profit organization. We are asking you to donate $13 because that is half of the average cost of a big league baseball ticket.

We ask that you please complete the pledge form on our website. Completing this pledge form will do three very important things.

1. We will provide you a list of thirteen amazing charities that could use your 13 bucks a lot more than the Steinbrenner family.


2. We will provide you a list of rewarding volunteer opportunities in your area, thanks to the good people at Volunteer Match.


3. We will quantify the size of our movement to show baseball how many of its fans are willing to give up the game for one day, choosing instead to give back to their community.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. We hope you join us on April 17th and then on April 18th we can all go back to watching the game we love.

Please visit our FAQ page if you have additional questions on the Baseball Fans Give Back movement.

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Volunteer At Domus On April 17th!

For our community service activity on April 17th, some of the founding team members of Baseball Fans Give Back will be at Domus in Stamford to host a "Baseball Day." We've been working with their amazing team in the last week to firm up our plans and we think you'll like what we have planned.

We'll have two sections on the day. The first will run from 9 - 12 and will be held at their Trailblazers Academy, a school for students in grades six, seven and eight. Later in the day, from 4 - 6, we will be at the Chester Addison Community Center, where we will be with kids aged 5 - 13.

We'll do some in-class work to review the lessons the kids can learn from baseball and the steroid scandal, but better yet - we'll be playing plenty baseball outside with the kids!

And we would love to have more volunteers with us on the day. If you can be in the Stamford area on April 17th and have no issues with playing baseball and having fun - you're exactly the person we're looking for. Of course you don't need to commit for the whole day and you don't need to be a former baseball player. We are thankful for any amount of time and mentoring you can give us, Domus and the kids on the 17th.

I'll also tell you that we're working on food, hats, T-shirts and some other special guests - just in case baseball, fun and helping kids aren't enough reasons to convince you to join us on April 17th.

So that's our pitch to volunteer with us at Domus in Stamford, CT on April 17th. Email us at contact@baseballfansgiveback.com if you are interested to join us or if you just want some more information on the event.

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Feature Story In Hartford Courant

Columnist Lori Riley covered the Baseball Fans Give Back social initiative in Sunday's Hartford Courant. Thanks to Lori for the coverage...and for letting the world know I made an error in Game 2 of the 1987 Secaucus Little League Championship Game. I hope you'll read the story and consider joining our effort.

Read the Hartford Courant feature

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Sports Illustrated Covers, Likes Our Initiative

Sports Illustrated.com writer, John Rolfe, covered the Baseball Fans Give Back initiative in his latest "Getting Loose" column.

"It's a nice idea, and one imagines that were will be considerable support in places like New York..."

Read John's column on SI.com

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