Steve Burns
WMAL.com
ALEXANDRIA – (WMAL) When Simpson Park hosts its first game since Wednesday’s shooting, the gathering will be about more than just baseball.
First responders have been invited to throw out the first pitch, as Alexandria Little League President Gus Chiarello hopes to continue the community’s collective healing process.
“Something should be done to acknowledge what’s occurred and thank the heroes who were there,” Chiarello tells WMAL. “This would be a good opportunity to come out and just be with one another, acknowledge what happened, play ball and move forward.”
The two ballfields, affectionately known in Alexandria as “Big Simpson” and “Little Simpson,” re-opened over the weekend after the FBI finished collecting evidence around the shooting Wednesday that sent four to the hospital, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. The first formal game since the shooting is set to be played Monday night at 7 p.m. Games over the weekend were moved to other fields in the city, but the league also fielded invites from surrounding jurisdictions to temporarily host games.
In such a tight-knit neighborhood, Chiarello says both the park and Little League itself are important components of the community fabric of Del Ray and Alexandria.
“We have 40 different sponsors for teams, so I know the business community likes having their names on the jerseys,” he says. “When you see kids out playing baseball, it’s kind of a sense of place and a sense of where we are as a community and as Americans.”
Chiarello hopes seeing those police officers, firefighters, and EMTs might help kids come to terms with the horrific event that happened on their humble home turf.
“What happened the other day, those acts of bravery, are emblematic of those attributes that we try to embed in our kids to make them better citizens,” he says. “You point to those positives of what happened, those heroes that showed up and did their job and did it bravely.
“You tell the kids, ‘That’s the example that you should emulate.’”
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