Tears and Smiles in Blacksburg

Hate them because their payroll is more than the gross national product of half the countries in the world. Envy them for the talent that their fortunes have afforded them. Wish your team owned as many world championships as them. But for at least one season I will not be able to help but to cheer for them… as long as their opponent is not the Chicago White Sox, my team.

On Tuesday, March 18th, the New York Yankees made good on Mr. Steinbrenner’s promise to visit and play an exhibition game at Virginia Tech. It was nearly eleven months ago that a student massacred thirty-two fellow students in two different campus buildings at Virginia Tech before taking his own life. Upon hearing the news, George Steinbrenner, Yankees former owner and figurehead, donated one million dollars to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund and vowed to have his Yankees make a trip to the campus to play an exhibition game against the Tech’s baseball squad. This game wasn’t about baseball though, it was about healing. A team who has won twenty-six world series titles does not need the services of a college baseball team to gear up for a run at number twenty-seven. The Yankee organization was genuinely touched by the tragic events that transpired last year in Blacksburg, Virginia. In a true show of humanity, the Yankees, comprised of individuals willing to utilize the resources and influence God gave them, wanted to do their part in helping to better the lives of others. The Yankees sent their starting position players onto the field for four innings of the seven inning game. They didn’t send in scrubs to do their charity work, they sent in the men that make the millions, the primadonas, the subjects of our gossip columns nationwide. This was a huge gesture. Reading an article on ESPN.com about the trip nearly moved me to tears. To think how much the presence of the Yankee organization meant to every relative or loved one of those students needlessly murdered is staggering. How amazing it felt for the Virginia Tech shortstop and second baseman to turn an inning ending double play hit off the bat of Jason Giambi is reason enough for applause. The joy A-Rod brought to those collegians by sitting in their dugout for the last couple innings signing autographs and testing the student’s sports trivia knowledge for prizes such as a batting glove or bat is immeasurable. The number of smiles that adorned the faces of so many Virginia Tech faithful that day watching the Bronx Bombers take their field, wearing baseball caps donning their logo on the side, and the tears that were wept when the Yankees visited their memorial before the game commemorating those that they loved and lost that fateful day last April are invaluable.

A young woman placed a Derek Jeter T-shirt near the stone memorializing her slain fiancé before posing for a picture with Mr. Jeter himself. Prior to the snapshot being taken, Derek had to ask her one favor; he wanted her to smile, and smile she did. That’s all the Yankees really wanted. They wanted the town of Blacksburg, Virginia, to smile. The Hokies and their faithful did just that.