9-year-old lost all his baseball memorabilia in a fire, now fans are rallying to help him
A 9-year-old Oakland Athletics fan penned a heartfelt letter to his favorite team recounting every baseball-loving kid’s worst nightmare — his entire collection of memorabilia was gone, lost when his burned down in the Northern California wildfires. And now the A’s and their fans are rallying to rebuild the young boy’s baseball memorabilia collection.
It’s quite a show of community because anybody who loved baseball as a kid can identify. We loved our baseball cards and cherished our autographs and would be wrecked if this happened to us.
Here’s the letter from 9-year-old Loren Jade Smith, as shared by Katie Utehs of ABC 7:
Young @Athletics fan pens heartbreaking letter to team after losing all of his baseball memorabilia in the #NorthBayFires #abc7now pic.twitter.com/5dNDt5PLkY
— Katie Utehs (@KatieUtehs) October 15, 2017
If you need some help deciphering the cute-kid writing, here you go:
To the Oakland A’s:
I love watching your A’s games. I want to be an A’s player and I play at Mark West Little League in Santa Rosa. I played baseball in my backyard all day loving the A’s and making up my own game. In my backyard they won six World Series in a row. But my house burned down in the Santa Rosa fire and my saddest things was my baseball collection cards, my 17 jerseys and 10 hats and my baseball from the game and also a ball signed by the whole team and Rickey Henderson and Bob Melvin. My brother and me have so much fun but he is only 9 months old. I am teaching him how to throw balls. I have every single A’s card from 2000 to now but I am 9-years-old. I had a major league baseball and it all burned up. So sad. I know you are not all together but hope they get this.
By Loren
Six World Series in a row? Impressive, kid. The internet and the A’s immediately fell in love with Loren, his letter and started to rally to help him. First there was Athletics president Dave Kaval, who tweeted the following:
This is so touching. So sad to hear about their loss. We would be happy to completely outfit the family in new @Athletics gear. Contact me https://t.co/WWBz6uoxsE
— Dave Kaval (@DaveKaval) October 15, 2017
Then ex-A’s pitcher Dan Haren jumped in with an offer to send Loren some memorabilia:
Where can I send something?
— dan haren (@ithrow88) October 15, 2017
And there was Topps and Eireann Dolan, the wife of ex-A’s closer Sean Doolittle:
can you send us info on how we can help
— Topps Company (@Topps) October 15, 2017
How can we send something?
— ScarinDolanBoolittle (@EireannDolan) October 16, 2017
Other MLB teams started to offer to send Loren some memorabilia too:
Hey Loren, we got a package with your name on it on the way! #RaysUp pic.twitter.com/krjS5mdiRY
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) October 16, 2017
Sure! Let us know the back story and we can send some stuff.
— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) October 16, 2017
Of course, countless random A’s fans were jumping in to help. So many, in fact, that the A’s responded by setting up a place for anybody to send memorabilia on Loren’s behalf.
If you'd like to donate baseball memorabilia to our pal Loren, please send items to the address below and we’ll make sure they get to him. pic.twitter.com/xI3ZwWWfNA
— A's, But Spooky (@Athletics) October 16, 2017
If you’d like to see young Loren give his best home-run call, here’s an adorable video from ABC 7’s Melanie Woodrow:
9 yr old Loren Smith gives us his best @Athletics announcer call, young fan penned letter to team after losing memorabilia in #NorthBayFires pic.twitter.com/z7XYkDUpAX
— Melanie Woodrow (@MelanieWoodrow) October 16, 2017
When Loren’s house is rebuilt, it sounds like he’ll have plenty of baseball memorabilia with which he can fill his bedroom. Here’s to six more backyard World Series too.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz