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Charitable work brings out the best in numerous teams and athletes

Virtually all professional sports franchises make a point of aligning themselves in some way with charities. From a cynical point of view, it's good public
Frank Deford|
Charitable work brings out the best in numerous teams and athletes
Charitable work brings out the best in numerous teams and athletes

Virtually all professional sports franchises make a point of aligning themselves in some way with charities. From a cynical point of view, it's good public relations, but my experience is that the teams are genuine in their good works. Often, a funny thing often happens, especially where children are involved. Some of the athletes who initially look upon their involvement with a team's charity as drudgery, just more PR duty, end up being quite moved by the experience.

Some athletes even get deeply, personally involved. The story of Babe Ruth fulfilling his promise to hit a home run for a kid in a hospital is the stuff of myth, but yes, it really happened. The boy's named was Johnny Sylvester. Ted Williams' Jimmy Fund for children with cancer is perhaps the best known example of a star turning personal experience into a full-fledged foundation, but it's not rare. There really are a lot of athletes who catch on how lucky they are to be physically blessed, and therefore care more for those who got the short end of that same stick.

It may surprise you that the Yankees, despite that cold, corporate image, have perhaps the sweetest, most personal program of any team. Starting this Monday, smack in the middle of the season, the Yankees, players and coaches alike, will participate in what they call Hope Week. Five different deserving organizations have been chosen, and each day various Yankees will go out and share some happy experience with the lucky recipients. Yes, absolutely every Yankee on the team has volunteered to spend time away from the park with people who have suffered some setback in life. Last year, for example, manager Joe Girardi went out to New Jersey, surprised an elderly blind Yankee fan and came to the Stadium with her and her seeing-eye dog, exactly as she normally made the trip: two-and-a-half hours of train, subway and sidewalk.

Hope Week this year will mean that some of the Yankees will be riding on a double-decker bus with several children from Haiti who were rescued after the earthquake and brought to New York to live. It'll be a good old-fashioned sight-seeing trip, ending up at the Empire State Building, where the Haitian boys and girls will light the tower. On another day, other Yankees will go to a beach party with children who lost a parent ten years ago, on that awful September 11th. Then, the players will ride together with the boys and girls in a water taxi up to the old ball yard.

Yankee Hope Week has been such a lovely success that this year the Minnesota Twins have also instituted a similar program. Yeah, of course sports is a business, and the best players make millions and the worst among them are terrible people. But some of them are really nice guys and sometimes, as the song from the old musical Damn Yankees has it: "you gotta have heart." And many of them, damn Yankees and otherwise, really do.

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Frank Deford
FRANK DEFORD

Frank Deford is among the most versatile of American writers. His work has appeared in virtually every medium, including print, where he has written eloquently for Sports Illustrated since 1962. Deford is currently the magazine's Senior Contributing Writer and contributes a weekly column to SI.com. Deford can be heard as a commentator each week on Morning Edition. On television he is a regular correspondent on the HBO show Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. He is the author of 15 books, and his latest,The Enitled, a novel about celebrity, sex and baseball, was published in 2007 to exceptional reviews. He and Red Smith are the only writers with multiple features in The Best American Sports Writing of the Century. Editor David Halberstam selected Deford's 1981 Sports Illustrated profile on Bobby Knight (The Rabbit Hunter) and his 1985 SI profile of boxer Billy Conn (The Boxer and the Blonde) for that prestigious anthology. For Deford the comparison is meaningful. "Red Smith was the finest columnist, and I mean not just sports columnist," Deford told Powell's Books in 2007. "I've always said that Red is like Vermeer, with those tiny, priceless pieces. Five hundred words, perfectly chosen, crafted. Best literary columnist, in any newspaper, that I've ever seen." Deford was elected to the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. Six times at Sports Illustrated Deford was voted by his peers as U.S. Sportswriter of The Year. The American Journalism Review has likewise cited him as the nation's finest sportswriter, and twice he was voted Magazine Writer of The Year by the Washington Journalism Review. Deford has also been presented with the National Magazine Award for profiles; a Christopher Award; and journalism honor awards from the University of Missouri and Northeastern University; and he has received many honorary degrees. The Sporting News has described Deford as "the most influential sports voice among members of the print media," and the magazine GQ has called him, simply, "The world's greatest sportswriter." In broadcast, Deford has won a Cable Ace award, an Emmy and a George Foster Peabody Award for his television work. In 2005 ESPN presented a television biography of Deford's life and work, You Write Better Than You Play. Deford has spoken at well over a hundred colleges, as well as at forums, conventions and on cruise ships around the world. He served as the editor-in-chief of The National Sports Daily in its brief but celebrated existence. Deford also wrote Sports Illustrated's first Point After column, in 1986. Two of Deford's books, the novel, Everybody's All-American, and Alex: The Life Of A Child, his memoir about his daughter who died of cystic fibrosis, have been made into movies. Two of his original screenplays have also been filmed. For 16 years Deford served as national chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and he remains chairman emeritus. He resides in Westport, CT, with his wife, Carol. They have two grown children – a son, Christian, and a daughter, Scarlet. A native of Baltimore, Deford is a graduate of Princeton University, where he has taught American Studies.

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