Most summer baseball programs operate on a tight, limited budget and the Jackson American Legion team and Jackson Bulls amateur team are in that category.
A pair of recent donations have been a big help to both programs.
Jackson American Legion Post 130 has been very supportive of the Legion baseball team for many years, but sometimes a little outside help is needed to close some gaps.
We wrote about Barb and Mark Spaeth’s generous earlier this month to purchase some great-looking Baby Blue jerseys for the Senior Legion team to replace jerseys that had been used for several years.
The old jerseys had been used by both the Senior and Junior Legion teams. The new jerseys will be used exclusively by the Senior Legion team, while the Junior Legion team will continue to use the old ones. That should extend the life of the new ones a little.
Clay Cameron, Director of Development for NextEra Energy, was at Wacker Field with a $1,250 check for Easton Bahr, coach of the Jackson Legion team; and another $1,250 check for Scott Bahr, manager of the Jackson Bulls.
That amount represents a substantial portion of the budget for each team.
It’s been a long-standing tradition with summer baseball in Jackson to keep the cost for participants and their families to a bare minimum. That includes not charging a gate admission for regular-season home games. It’s also policy to not ask local businesses for money.
I was happy to be invited to a gathering to celebrate the significant donation to both the Legion and Bulls programs from NextEra Energy. That said, it was another tough evening for me trying to get used to using a camera again after several years off.
To date, I’ve been good at making sure the battery was charged. I have neglected to put it back in the camera, however. And I’ve arrived at my destination without a memory card. Once I didn’t have either.
This time there was no memory card, which I discovered after taking the first of several pictures we took that night.
I solved the problem by pulling my phone out of my pocket for the remainder of the pictures. That left unanswered the problem of putting the first group back together to retake that photo and we all left before I remembered.
The only remedy I could come up with at that point was to grab the picture taken by Jackson County Pilot Sports Editor Dan Condon once he tweeted it while giving him credit to cover my faux pas. And of course, I forgot to do that.
So, here’s a public thanks to Dan for use of the photo and a public apology for not giving him credit at the time. I’d like to say it won’t happen again (forgetting about the battery or memory card), but it probably will.