CHARLESTON, W.Va. –Pediatric patients at CAMC Women and Children’s Hospital getting the opportunity to interview four players with the Charleston Dirty Birds.
The second annual Kids Only Press Conference was held at the hospital Monday afternoon.
Pitchers Brendan Medoro, Edison Suriel, Carlos Meza and outfielder Demetrius Moorer visited and answered a wide range of questions including baseball related, general questions and even the best advice they’ve ever received.
Players were joined by Broadcaster Jill Gearin who helped field the questions for the press conference, CEO/Owner Andy Shea and CAMC Foundation president Bryan Cummings.
Demetrius Moorer, who is in his first season with the Dirty Birds, fourth professionally, was asked by Jill Gearin if he wanted to join.
He said his big takeaway from the event was being able to talk to the children.
“It’s also a great thing to speak with the kids and see the impact that you have on them because you never know what you can do for them, it’s always a great time to spend with them and obviously have the opportunity to even be here,” Moorer said.
Shea said that his wife is the one who mentioned the idea to him when they first moved to Charleston.
He said that seeing the kids participate in something like this was exciting.
“I had chills almost the entire time because it was just so fun to seeing them interact, seeing them light up, seeing them whether it was asking who throws the hardest or what’s the best advice you ever got, I mean those are some of the things that awesome to have some of those baseball questions along with the life questions,” Shea said.
Cummings said that with the foundation is the philanthropic arm that partners with community members and businesses that aim to provide support services to their patients.
He said that it’s extremely important for them to host something like this for the kids to break up the monotony.
“This is important for us and our patient population because we have a lot of kids battling hardships so to be able to bring a great community partner like the Charleston Dirty Birds into the hospital to give these kids some respite, a little bit of fun, and put a smile on their faces so very important,” Cummings said.
He said that they hold various other events throughout the year including the CAMC Run for Your, CAMC Luau, the Golf Classic and Climb.
Although the kids asked the players a variety of questions, Moorer said he really liked the advice question because it brought him back to when he was nine years old just starting his baseball journey.
“That was just a way of like thinking back to my childhood when I was little, you know some things that was taught to me or even said to me,” he said.
He also said that it was important to show the kids that no matter where you start in live, if you set a goal, you can achieve that goal.
After the mini-interview, the kids were able to get the players autographs, take pictures and they received their very own toy baseball bat and ball.