Hitmen Baseball #HITMENSTRONG

Summer 2016, the Manchester Hitmen baseball was created.  This team was created with the of emphasis of being one big family, and over the past 2 1/2 years, that bond between the boys as well as their families strengthened and drove us all to stay together.   A travel baseball team of 9, 10 & 11 year old boys who love the game of baseball and wanted to play ball at a competitive level.  A huge part of private travel sports is cost, these leagues tend to be very expensive.  Because we didn't want to limit our boys, we started fundraising right away and continued to do so over the last 2 1/2 years.  Our boys stood outside in every season, enduring the heat, rain, cold & snow.  Never once did they complain, they had goals to travel and enter tournaments and would work as hard as they needed to so that they could do so without breaking their parents bank or being unable to play because it was so expensive and their family could not afford it.  The boys canned as often as they could, served breakfasts, collected clothing to donate, held raffle type games, among other things. Parents participated in fundraisers as well, pouring wine at wine tasting, driving all over and supervising the boys while they canned, whatever we had to do to make each fundraiser a success.  

In the beginning of March, we became aware of some financial discrepancies in the boys' bank account.  We soon found out that the manager of our team, who was like family to all of us, had stolen all of the money we had fundraised for and it was gone.  He admitted this, and as a family, we had decided to give him 2 weeks to pay it back.  On March 21, the manager of our team brought back $6,500 that he had taken.  Shortly after, we had found out that he had robbed a local bank and the money he gave back to us was confiscated.  He is currently being held in the county jail on no bail.

Our boys are devastated, as are all of the families.  The boys were working extra hard to go away this summer to play in a tournament, as well as to enter tournaments this spring.  They now have to start over, from zero, and raise enough money to play.  These kids had worked so hard, and to see all of their hard work just be taken from them is tragic.  We are trying to raise as much money as we can so that our boys can focus on the game of baseball without worrying about finances.  We hope that as many people can help reach our goal as possible, and appreciate any donation that can be made.  Our boys will not let this tear them apart, but the bond they have formed will only strengthen and drive them to further success.

Thank you for reading our story and for any help you can give.  We will pick ourselves up and be stronger than ever.