Baseball, mascots and lots of sunny smiles in Portsmouth

11th annual Challenger Jamboree held at Glen Park

By Jim McGaw
Posted 6/11/17

PORTSMOUTH — You never know when a mascot is going to interrupt an at-bat.

In this case, it was Tessie the Green Monster, the Boston Red Sox’s newest — and most …

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Baseball, mascots and lots of sunny smiles in Portsmouth

11th annual Challenger Jamboree held at Glen Park

Posted

PORTSMOUTH — You never know when a mascot is going to interrupt an at-bat.

In this case, it was Tessie the Green Monster, the Boston Red Sox’s newest — and most colorful — team representative. She was prowling Glen Park Sunday when she caught the eye of 10-year-old Nathan Horn, who had just come to the plate to bat for the Riverside Challenger League.

The North Providence youngster stopped cold in his tracks, turned around and pointed to Tessie, his mouth wide open.

The same thing happened with teammate Zach Kuiper of East Providence, but with a different Green Monster. The 15-year-old spotted the Red Sox’s other mascot from a good 30 yards away and outstretched his arms until Wally met him for a hug along the first base line.

Nathan and Zach were just two baseball players with special needs who took part in the 11th annual Challenger Jamboree, which was started up here by Bob Dyl, director of the Portsmouth-based Rhode Island District 2 Challenger Division.

Eighteen teams from 13 different leagues around Rhode Island and Massachusetts came to the park for a day of fun, food and baseball.

As always, everything was offered up free of charge and a team of volunteers made it all possible so that parents could enjoy a stress-free day of watching their children play.

There was a bounce house, water slide, mascots from many different sports teams, horse rides, live music, face-painting and balloon-making and more.  

Free raffle items giveaways for the players included two autographed photos of Boston Red Sox starting pitcher David Price, two tickets to see the Red Sox, and two four-packs of tickets to the New England Revolution soccer team.

This year the honor of throwing out the first pitch went to Bob Murphy, a longtime member of the Fogarty Foundation who currently serves as president of its Board of Trustees.

“Putting this on costs a lot of money and we never ask a dime from anyone,” said Mr. Dyl, noting that grants make the day possible. 

“For the last couple of years, the Fogarty Foundation has been a major grant donor toward this event,” Mr. Dyl said. “Bob is a retired FBI agent and has been working diligently with individuals, who are a little less fortunate, with the game of baseball. He loves the game of baseball, so he was the perfect person to ask to help us with the first pitch.”

Challenger Jamboree, Challenger Baseball, Glen Park

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