For 23 years the Richie Ashburn-Harry Kalas Foundation has been providing free baseball summer camps and winter clinics to more than 1,000 Philadelphia-area children and coaches.
This year, the foundation will be hosting a golf tournament to raise money to make sure they can continue to help children around the city remain involved in baseball.
Former Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr., who will be taking part in the golf tournament, said his decision to get involved with the foundation since the early days was an easy decision.
"I got involved at the outset because Whitey Ashburn was someone I admired a great deal as a player and as a broadcaster and he was very passionate about our local youth being interested in the game of baseball—the game he dearly loved," Amaro Jr. said. "Additionally, my Penn Charter Head Coach, Rick Mellor and Richard Ashburn Jr. (Whitey's son) are close and we wanted to try to do something in Whitey's honor. My brother, David, was also a founding member as we all had deep relationships with Rick and Richard. When Harry Kalas passed we went to his family and they were honored to join in our Foundation so we coupled the two Philly greats."
Along with teaching the fundamentals of baseball, the foundation touches on valuable life lessons such as sportsmanship, drug and alcohol awareness, and the importance of education.
"There are two reasons why the foundation is so important for me. First, the Foundation provides free baseball camps for children ages 6-12 throughout the Philadelphia area. Our coaches at our clinics are local High School baseball team members who have an interest in baseball - many are students at Penn Charter. Getting these teenagers involved as well as having kids from from all neighborhoods, backgrounds and cultures get an opportunity to do something for free that means so much to the Amaro family and the Ashburn family is really at the heart of this," Amaro Jr. said. "Second, ultimately it is not easy for parents to get their kids into a setting where they feel their kids are safe and even sometimes have difficulty financially getting into baseball programs. The kids are being taught the fundamentals of baseball and we provide them an avenue to bring that opportunity to them free of charge. It is also about keeping baseball dreams and interest in our sport alive for kids in our city."
This year's event is being held on June 7, 2021 at the Yardley Country Club and will feature some of the biggest names in Phillies history. The scheduled of list celebrities includes Mike Schmidt, Charlie Manuel, Larry Bowa, Mickey Morandini, Dave Hollins, John Kruk, Dan Plesac, Larry Andersen, Milt Thompson, Dickie Noles, Tommy Greene, Ben Davis, Scott Franzke, Tom McCarthy, Paul Holmgren, Billy King, Howard Eskin, Al Morganti, Michael Barkann, and Leslie Gudel. Each golfing foursome will be paired with a former Phillies player or coach.
Additionally, the event will include a light lunch during registration, dinner afterwards that will include both a Q-and-A and a baseball discussion, as well as an auction filled with cool Phillies memorabilia.
For more information, check out ashburnkalasfoundation.org!
