Day 4 of the East Coast quest for the best has wrapped up. Not only did I locate some pristine lumber for the best bats in the world, I had an amazing day outside of the job. Its crazy sometimes how we meet people in unexpected ways. After 15 years of doing business over the phone I finally met the people across the country that have been supplying us with some of the best maple anywhere. Awesome people! Hard working small town people. Its simply much nicer to be able to put faces to the voices and names you know so well. We talked business then just shot the breeze about normal stuff like we had been friends forever. Awesome! Along those same lines day 4 concluded with yet another incredible meeting. After a couple years of emails and exchanges of letters phone calls etc., I finally met Justin Contursi. It was by luck that my day eased up a bit to where I could take the extra couple hours to reaarange my plans and visit with him in New York for a few hours. For the Sandlot Fans that dont understand the connection...its a pretty awesome story. Justin and I met through a baseball social network when he was asking if any bat suppliers provided Pink bats so he could honor his sister Amy during his game. Amy had battled with Cancer bravely and eventually it got the upper hand. Justin simply wanted to purchase Pink bats to honor her memory in his game and throughout his baseball season. After seeing many sales pitches by other vendors offering to sell Pink bats to him I replied to Justins query with a donation of pink bats for him and his friend Mark and Dad Joe. Somehow it just seemed like the right thing to do and for the right person...turns out I was right. After that initial year Justin decided to extend his dedication by starting an annual softball tournament called Breathing for Amy. The tournament has had three years in and continues to grow each year with 6 teams playing this year and several on standby due to space and time constrictions at the ball park which has now been named for Amy Contursi. Each year Sandlot Stiks donates pink bats to the tourney for Justin to use. Its just our small part in what is a collaboration of amazing people putting on this amazing tournament. The money raised is donated through the Breathing for Amy foundation and is given randomly to families who need help with expenses due to medical bills accumulated for cancer treatment patients. Justin is truly a great individual and has been supported by some awesome people to help make the tournament grow each year. Im sure he will chime in on this post. If so, Justin, it was awesome meeting you and just being able to hang out and talk baseball like weve known each other forever. If possible please leave a link to the Breathing for Amy page and possibly the link to the story of the Pink Bat. This trip gets more amazing each day. The quest for the best is proving to be successful in many ways! Great Day 4! Conclusion tomorrow!
Posted on: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 03:03:31 +0000
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