#RallyForChloe: The Most Important Home Run in the MLB
In Tuesday's game, Rays outfielder Brett Phillips hit one of the most memorable home runs in recent MLB history
When the game was over, and Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Brett Phillips answered questions from reporters, the message on his shirt said it all: Baseball is fun.
Yes, sometimes baseball breaks your heart (I’m looking at you, Dave Roberts), but more than anything it is simply fun. If the first week of this season has proven anything, it is that simple fact—and it has done so with dramatic flairs, fathers and sons, and even butts. Yet nothing embodies the best of baseball quite like Phillips and Tuesday’s game in Tampa Bay when a ball sailed over the fence and a little girl’s smile spread across an entire community.
To understand that moment, we need to go back to the game’s first pitch. The very first pitch. The ceremonial first pitch.
Taking the mound was 8 year old Chloe Grimes, who wore a white Rays #22 jersey. The name across the back said “WARRIOR.” That’s because Chloe is currently receiving treatment for her second battle with cancer. She beat the disease once already, before her fourth birthday, but the cancer had returned a few months ago. In the hospital, she will watch Rays game for comfort, and Phillips is her favorite player. So, the Rays invited Chloe, her family, and her softball team to the game. Chloe would throw the first pitch. Phillips would catch it.
A little before the pitch, Phillips talked with Chloe on the field. She handed him a signed softball, a signed photo of her in her softball uniform, and a note thanking him for catching her pitch. Finally, she handed him a teal bracelet that said, “Rally for Chloe, Our Princess Warrior.” Phillips slipped it on.
Then he made her a promise. He was going to do something special—just for her.
Phillips came up to bat in the bottom of the third inning, right as Chloe was being interviewed on the local broadcast. He took some balls and fouled off pitches while Chloe described why Phillips is her favorite player and how she had to undergo 36 rounds of chemotherapy. On Phillips’ left wrist, you could see that he was still wearing her teal bracelet.
On a 2-2 pitch, Phillips launched a ball that soared so high that TV cameras struggled a moment to find it. Chloe narrated the moment. “Brett Phillips just hit a home run!” she said.
“I think,” Phillips said after the game, “that’s the hardest ball I’ve hit in my career.”
In the postgame interview, Phillips kept getting choked up. “Perspective and appreciation for what I get to do on a daily basis, show up to play Major League Baseball and do this for a living,” he said. “And you have a young girl who’s 8 years old, battling cancer for a second time, and she can smile and enjoy her life? It’s crazy.”
The Rays staff retrieved the ball from the right field bleachers and took it to Phillips to sign. He’ll give it to Chloe—along with some other good news. The Rays will be making a donation to help her family pay for her medical bills.
“I told her she gave me her power, and she sure did,” Phillips said. “It’s just crazy.”
He paused for a moment, and then added one final thought, “Sports are just so cool for moments like that.”
Chloe will have her thyroid removed in a few weeks. To support her family and learn more, visit GoFundMe.
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