{"id":620,"date":"2015-07-03T03:29:09","date_gmt":"2015-07-03T03:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breakdance.ameravant.com\/sbforesters\/2015\/07\/03\/foresters-hit-a-homer-with-the-challengers\/"},"modified":"2023-05-12T15:37:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T22:37:00","slug":"foresters-hit-a-homer-with-the-challengers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/foresters-hit-a-homer-with-the-challengers\/","title":{"rendered":"Foresters Hit a Homer with the Challengers!"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are smiles . . . and then there are smiles. The Foresters were on the receiving end of a shining stack of super smiles this week\u2014as well as showing off some of their own\u2014as the team held its annual clinic with the Challengers Little League. Young people of all ages who have developmental disabilities gathered with Foresters players and coaches to laugh, love, and play baseball.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a great three days that was,\u201d said manager Bill Pintard. \u201cWe even had Ryan from that group in our dugout on Thursday night. They did more for me than I did for them. They have a great spirit, they\u2019re out there playing the game and living the dream. It was so fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Infielder David Greer\u2014who as a youngster in Arizona, worked with his father as the elder Greer ran a Challengers Little Leauge there\u2014echoed the coach\u2019s feelings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really puts life and baseball in perspective,\u201d David said. \u201cI think we enjoyed it more than they did! Just seeing their smiles . . . we all had buddies that we worked with, and it was great to make them smile.\u201d \u2014Jim Buckley, Photos by Eric Isaacs<\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>

David Greer and a special buddy.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Challengers-Foresters clinics are an outgrowth of the team\u2019s longstanding Hugs for Cubs program to help families and kids battling cancer and other serious diseases. The connection between helping and baseball was a natural, and now each summer Foresters players take home an experience much more valuable than a new batting stance or way to turn the double play.<\/p>\n

For more on Challengers Little League, visit their web site.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Home<\/a>

Home Run!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Sters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are smiles . . . and then there are smiles. The Foresters were on the receiving end of a shining stack of super smiles this week\u2014as well as showing off some of their own\u2014as the team held its annual clinic with the Challengers Little League. Young people of all ages who have developmental disabilities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,5,164],"tags":[],"game-year":[],"acf":[],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":621,"href":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions\/621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620"},{"taxonomy":"game-year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbforesters.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/game-year?post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}