Through MLB ballpark tour, a family gives back after tragedy - The Boston Globe (2024)

Until they suddenly and tragically didn’t.

Jackson, a junior at Elon University, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in South Carolina last year. The 21-year-old from North Eastham was both an avid baseball fan and a player on Elon’s club team.

The Yelle family — Scott, his wife Andrea, and daughter Lexi — formed a charitable foundation in Jackson’s name. The Jackson Yelle Family Foundation was created with the goal of helping young people and organizations who reflected Jackson’s values and giving personality.

“Once we did that, I decided to finish the journey we started,” Scott Yelle said.

Scott, 56, set out to see the remaining parks he hadn’t visited with his son. Former ESPN anchor Trey Wingo, a family friend, helped out with connections to get tickets. The trips would include $1,000 donations to each team’s RBI Program, which benefits local youth baseball and softball leagues. That dovetailed perfectly with the goals of the foundation.

Major League Baseball became involved and Scott has been welcomed across the league. He threw out first pitches in Cincinnati and Miami and has taken part in other on-field ceremonies. MLB provided team-specific T-shirts that include the foundation’s logo, the RBI logo, and a number on the back representing the number of stadiums Scott has visited.

Sometimes Scott attends the game alone, other times with family or friends. He meets fans at the park and shares his story.

“People have been incredibly nice,” he said.

Scott has narrowed the list down to six. He’ll be in Milwaukee on June 2, the two parks in Chicago from June 4-6, St. Louis on June 7, then Kansas City (June 8) and Detroit (June 9).

There are tentative plans to meet up with Seattle righthander George Kirby, who played at Elon, in Kansas City.

“We all deal with grief in different ways,” Scott said. “Healing is not the right word, but for me this has been very therapeutic. It’s helping me move forward with him in my heart.”

Jackson was not just a baseball fan. He landed an internship with TrackMan in 2022 working at all the parks in the Cape Cod League helping to compile data on prospects. It combined his love for the game with his major, which was business analytics. He met scouts, coaches, and umpires, and often texted his father about how much he was enjoying being around the game in that capacity.

Could that have led to a career in baseball? Jackson never came right out and said that was his goal, but he was on the right path.

Scott has been invited to attend the RBI World Series in Vero Beach, Fla., in August. There’s talk of going back to the 12 ballparks he visited with Jackson and making donations to the RBI programs in those cities.

“I’ve met the young men and women from the RBI programs and seeing the impact we can have on them is special,” Yelle said.

Down the road, the foundation is considering aiding other sports-related charities. The ballpark tour is a beginning, not an end.

“Jackson would want us to do some good in the world,” Scott said. “That’s really the goal.”

Go to Jacksonyelle.com for more information or to make a donation.

BIG LEAGUE DREAMS

Devers was inspired by seeing Ortiz

For years now, the Red Sox have made it a point to have their prospects based in Fort Myers, Fla., attend a game at Tropicana Field during the season. It’s a chance for the teenagers to see their major league compatriots in person and for their coaches to mingle with the big league staff.

Typically, the players watch batting practice from the field behind the batting cage then catch the game in seats behind the Red Sox dugout. It’s a break from their usual routine, along with providing some motivation.

Rafael Devers was once one of those players. He played in what was then known as the Gulf Coast League in 2015. That team attended a game at the Trop on Sept. 12. That was the night David Ortiz hit the 499th and 500th home runs of his career. Devers was 18 at the time.

“That was a great day, seeing Papi do that,” Devers said. “I’ll never forget that. It was amazing.”

Devers made it to the Red Sox in 2017, the year after Ortiz retired.

The Sox hosted their players at the game Tuesday and Devers made sure to go over and say hello to them, most of them fellow Dominicans.

“I remember being where they were,” Devers said. “They can do what I did and get [to the majors]. That’s what I told them, work hard.”

It’s a message those players hear all the time. But it’s extra meaningful when it comes from somebody like Devers.

A few other observations on the Red Sox:

▪ The Sox roster is a combination of players acquired by four administrations, so this is more of a coincidence than a plan. But the current group of players is proving to be a good fit for the style of baseball being encouraged by the rules installed in recent years.

“It’s not that we’re going to run crazy out there. But you need athletic guys to win it and to be competitive at this level,” manager Alex Cora said. “Why? Because you’re not going to hit the ball out of the ballpark all the time. But you can do the other stuff. You can play defense every day. And speed is not going to slump.”

▪ When the Sox traded Chris Sale to the Braves in December, the biggest surprise was that they found somebody to take him.

Sale had missed approximately 75 starts the previous four seasons because of an assortment of injuries and was still owed $27.5 million. The Sox kicked in $17 million to make the trade and received Vaughn Grissom, a now-23-year-old who still had potential as a prospect.

A prospect and $10.5 million in savings for Sale seemed like a good bargain.

That Sale was 7-1 with a 3.08 ERA and 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings through nine starts doesn’t mean Craig Breslow made a mistake. It means the 35-year-old Sale is healthy and motivated being with a team like the Braves.

“I can’t stress enough what this clubhouse is like,” Sale said after throwing seven shutout innings against the Padres on Monday. “The energy that’s in there, the guys and what everyone brings to the table and just how laid back it is, it’s a lot of fun.

“It’s like going to play college summer baseball, just with brighter lights. Our staff allows us to be who we are and it brings out the best in everybody.”

You’d like to think Sale would be pitching as well had he stayed in Boston. But playing for a legitimate contender and sharing a clubhouse with other star players has clearly been part of his revitalization. The Braves have been careful to give Sale extra rest between starts and not go beyond seven innings or 100-103 pitches. Whether that will keep in the rotation is a question.

Sale was on the injured list at least once every season from 2018-23, eight times in all. He has not made 28 or more starts since 2017.

Sale struck out nine without a walk against San Diego, hit 96 miles per hour with his fastball, and induced 18 swings and misses. He went to a three-ball count only twice.

▪ You often hear general managers say there’s a shared risk when a player is signed to a pre-arbitration contract extension. The team is taking a chance that the player will be paid more than he proves worth. The player could be leaving money on the table if he plays well.

Garrett Whitlock’s situation illustrates the danger for the team.

His four-year, $18.75 million extension started in 2023. Whitlock is 6-5 since with a 4.50 ERA over 26 games and 90 innings.

He is owed $2.37 million for the remainder of this season, $5.25 million for 2025 when he could be on the injured list for much of the season, and $7.25 million for 2026.

The Sox can easily absorb the financial hit. But for now it’s a sunk cost.

▪ The Red Sox have an interesting prospect in 19-year-old Ovis Pontes. The 6-foot-4-inch righthander, who was signed in 2022, is the only professional player from Antigua. His signing was an event as Pontes was invited to meet Prime Minister Gaston Browne.

Pontes pitched 10 scoreless innings in his first three Florida Complex League games this season and struck out 11. Like so many pitchers at that stage, he’s tall and skinny with loads of potential.

Pontes attended Tuesday’s Red Sox-Rays game with his FCL teammates after they played in nearby Sarasota.

▪ A few readers forwarded a marketing email from the Sox offering $29 seats for upcoming games that included $15 worth of food or drinks at any concession stand. The vaunted “Fenway Experience” doesn’t seem to be selling as well as hoped.

ETC.

Twins take a wrong turn

The Twins won 12 games in a row from April 22 to May 4, part of a hot streak that saw them win 17 of 20.

A package of sausage became a good-luck charm and the players posed for photos on the field after wins. T-shirts were made and manager Rocco Baldelli gave comically serious updates about the state of the sausage.

Then came the inevitable regression — only worse. The Twins were swept in three-game series by the Yankees and Guardians, getting outscored by 33 runs. The losing streak reached seven games with a 12-3 loss against the Nationals on Monday. Washington’s Mitchell Parker, a rookie lefthander, allowed three runs over six innings. That prompted a players-only meeting after the game. Baldelli had his say to reporters and didn’t hold back.

“The guy just stood out there and threw offspeed pitches for like four straight innings,” the manager said. “We didn’t do anything about it. We continued to wave at them and look for fastballs — which today, they weren’t coming, especially for the first five, six innings.

“In this stretch of games where we’ve been struggling, that’s been a common theme. You can’t take three, four, five innings to adjust to what the starting pitcher is doing to you. That’s not quality professional baseball.”

The roller-coaster Twins came back the next day and scored 10 runs, hitting four home runs.

Extra bases

The Phillies’ Ranger Suarez is 9-0 with a 1.36 ERA through 10 starts. He is the first pitcher to win nine of his first 10 starts since Chris Sale (White Sox) and Jake Arrieta (Cubs) in 2016. His ERA is the lowest for a Phillies pitcher through 10 starts since Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1916 (1.24). All he did that season was go 33-12 with a 1.55 ERA over 45 starts. He also picked up three saves just for kicks . . . One of the best baseball terms is “golden sombrero” for a four-strikeout game. Condolences to Giancarlo Stanton, who set the major league record with his 28th golden sombrero earlier this month. Ryan Howard had the old record of 27. Worth noting: Ted Williams never did it in 2,292 games and punched out three times on only four occasions . . . The 2026 World Baseball Classic will be played in Houston, Miami, San Juan, and Tokyo with the semifinals and finals at loanDepot Park in Miami . . . The Guardians traded Francisco Lindor to the Mets before he became a free agent. He then agreed to a 10-year, $341 million contract in New York. Hard to blame him for that. Lindor returned for the first time last week and was asked what he missed about playing in Cleveland. “Winning,” he said. “There’s nothing better than winning. I know we didn’t finish the ultimate goal. We didn’t close it out, but just the experiences of winning and pouring champagne on each other and creating memories that way with teammates, their families, our whole entire family, front office. It was a great experience and seeing the crowd, how they got behind us with the rally towels and when it was all red and all white. It was pretty cool.” Lindor has played in only three postseason games in New York after appearing in 25 with Cleveland . . . Gerrit Cole faced hitters in live batting practice Tuesday, a significant step as he returns from nerve inflammation in his elbow. The first-place Yankees can afford to take their time with Cole, who will go through a spring training-style progression before being activated . . . Add Tampa Bay reliever Pete Fairbanks to the list of baseball players felled by bizarre injuries. He was unavailable for a game against the Red Sox this month when he cut his right index finger removing the cap from a bottle of Mountain Valley spring water. Fairbanks took a bottle from the team plane to the hotel and cut his hand opening it in the dark. “Just twisted the cap and I looked down at my finger that night, and I had a cut basically the width of the finger pad,” he told the Tampa Bay Times. Maybe it helped. Fairbanks had three perfect innings in his next three games, striking out five and throwing 19 of 22 pitches for strikes . . . MLB and the Players Association don’t agree on much, but they are working together to expand financial benefits for living Negro Leagues players. Players with fewer than four seasons of service time will now be eligible for a yearly payment . . . Mookie Betts was nominated for a Sports Emmy in the category of Emerging On-Air Talent for work done with Bleacher Report, TBS,, and Fox Sports. He was the only active athlete nominated in any category. Noah Eagle, who calls Big Ten football and basketball games for NBC, was the winner . . . Ron Wood of The Rolling Stones attended the Mariners-Yankees game last week, a few days before the band played MetLife Stadium. The Sox will be in Baltimore this week before the Stones play at Gillette Stadium on Thursday . . . Happy birthday to one of the oldest Red Sox alumni, 90-year-old Jim Mahoney. The defensively gifted shortstop from New Jersey played 31 games for the Sox in 1959 then was taken by the Angels in the 1960 expansion draft before being traded to the Washington Senators. He played 120 major league games in all with the Sox, Senators, Indians, and Astros. His playing career lasted until 1970 before he coached in the majors and minors until 1988.

Peter Abraham can be reached at peter.abraham@globe.com. Follow him @PeteAbe.