Cherry Hill, Newtown Kids Bond Over Baseball

On any other day, an away team home run like Jack Mulligan’s over Cherry Hill National’s scoreboard would’ve been greeted with jeers.

Instead, Mulligan—part of an all-star 11-year-old team from Newtown, CT—got high-fives from his opponents as he rounded the bases, and plenty of applause from the fans along the first-base line, even as his team took a 9-7 lead.

It was that kind of Saturday.

Six months removed from the tragedy of the Sandy Hook school shooting, the Newtown players were in Cherry Hill as part of an informal program started by coach Chris Petersen, who had taken his team on the road to the Boston area previously.

But following the Sandy Hook shooting, Petersen said he wasn’t sure it was a great idea this year, but pressed on all the same—and didn’t regret that at all.

“This is exactly what I wanted—it was fun, it was a friendly game,” he said. “They want to pay respects, but they want to just play.”

The game came together as part of a bit of a whirlwind tour—the Newtown players were in town to play two games and hit the Phillies-Mets game along with the Cherry Hill National all-stars, put together between Petersen, Babe Ruth Baseball commissioner Rob Connor, a Cherry Hill resident himself, and Cherry Hill National league president Steve Saft.

While the focus was more on the ballgame and giving the players an experience before the grind of summer all-star play, Saft said the shadow of tragedy lurked, even as excitement for the game built over the last month.

“The kids were a little concerned about the tragedy and how they were going to react,” Saft said. “Once the Newtown kids came in today, they saw them as just baseball players and 11-year-old kids. Baseball is the common denominator that brought these kids together.”

And apart from a brief moment of silence before the game and a few ceremonial overtures by township and county officials, who dubbed it Newtown baseball day, the afternoon was about balls and strikes.

Well, and home runs, which left the park four times—three by Newtown players Mulligan, Shea Talbot and Trevor Tyrell, and one by Cherry Hill National’s Dylan Hanni.

But whether it’s new friendships or turning a news story into something tangible, everyone involved said the lasting impact of the game will go beyond the 9-8 final score.

“This is the closest that the meaning of it all has come,” said Nicole Hanni, one of many parents who crowded the bleachers. “The kids have more respect for it.”

“They’ve never been in a tragedy like what these kids have, so it means a lot to them to acknowledge them and to have fun. It’s something they’ll remember for a lifetime, especially since this is their last year playing here before moving up to Babe Ruth.”