Athletes In Christ


HOUSE STILL ATTRACTING NEW FANS Sport: Baseball Team: Pittsburgh Pirates
Tuesday March 23, 2004 Former Nitro High School football star and current Pittsburgh Pirate farmhand J.R. House recently made a lasting impression on two young West Virginia baseball fans visiting Florida for spring training. Following is a letter their father wrote to the Charleston Daily Mail. Editor, I saw where the Pittsburgh Pirates sent J.R. House to their Triple-A affiliate in Nashville recently. That's fine for the Pirates, I suppose. House will get to play every day while Pittsburgh can continue to pursue a trade of Jason Kendall and his monster contract. But it won't be long until the Pirates will come to know what I learned about three weeks ago -- J.R. House is Big League, all the way. I took my two young sons, 8-year-old Joseph and 7-year-old Eric, to watch the Pirates work out in Bradenton. It was a cold, windy day, and we didn't get to see much as the Pirates pretty much stayed indoors in the batting cages. As luck would have it, the catchers were sent out to the field to work on their throwing just before the morning session ended. I had never met House, but had seen him play in two Nitro High School football games here in the Wheeling area, including his brilliant, 10-TD aerial display in the Class AAA championship versus Morgantown. Anyway, I was watching the workout with my boys when House turned, smiled and waved. That alone was enough to "make the day" for my sons, who are big baseball fans. But then something wild happened. When the workout ended, House came over, shook our hands and introduced himself. We told him we were from West Virginia. Such a nice young man. He then explained that he had a brief meeting to attend, but he'd come right back out. I figured we could then hit him up for autographs. But J.R. House had other plans. When he emerged from the clubhouse, he had his workout bag with him. He looked at the boys and asked if anyone wanted to play some ball. Can you imagine? He tossed Joseph his infielder's glove, Eric his outfielder's glove, then proceeded to pass ball and hit popups to the two luckiest little kids around. The boys were trying to show off, diving for balls, "throwing hard" and such, and J.R. seemed to enjoy it about as much as the kids. After a time, J.R. had to hit the showers before the clubhouse closed. He asked what we were doing for lunch, and we eagerly invited him out. After dining on Italian and digesting a healthy portion of sports talk, J.R. invited us to his hotel room for autographs and pictures. Perhaps I've gone on too long here, but with our "sports heroes" forever grabbing headlines for shoddy behavior, sometimes we need a J.R. House to remind us why sports can be so magical. Each of my sons came up to me at some point in the day and whispered that it was probably the best day of his life. So some day, when J.R. House makes it to PNC Park, he'll turn around and see two young fans laughing and waving and yelling for their new hero. He'll have this old fan doing the same thing. In the meantime, I figure that Nashville would be a nice place to hang out. Joe Myers Glen Dale, W.Va. Previous Athlete Spotlights Jacob Duncan - Baseball: Baltimore Orioles J.R. House - Football / Baseball: West Virginia University Danny Wuerffel - Football: Desire Street Ministries House Sponsors Camp - Baseball: Pittsburgh Pirates J.R. House - Baseball: Pittsburgh Pirates Rod Harper - Football: Southeast Seminoles Jennifer Magley - Tennis: Florida Gators Scott McGregor - Baseball: Aberdeen Ironbirds (Baltimore Orioles) William Morland - Football: Western Kentucky University Chris Rix - Football: Florida State Seminoles Todd Williams - Football: Florida State Seminoles Jon Kessick - Baseball: Baltimore Orioles Paul McCord - Football: Baltimore Ravens