When Butler Hits A Homer, He Hits It A Ton
Normally I do not chime in on the Royals side of the website much. I am a Cardinal fan, I fully admit to that. I have always followed the boys in blue very closely, however, and when a story pops up that grabs my attention, I enjoy being able to bring it out there to all of you.
I started following Billy Butler’s career around the time he arrived in the majors. I am not much of a prospect junkie like our writers Matt Kelsey and Justin Hulsey and I will leave the “future of the franchise” stuff to them. I will even admit to not paying a whole ton of attention to Mr. Butler until he grabbed an everyday role in 2009 and clubbed 21 home runs and 93 runs batted in. While his numbers grabbed my attention, his personality and beliefs captured my desire to learn more about him.
You see, in 2010, Billy Butler started a campaign called “Hit It A Ton”. For every home run Billy hits during the 2010 season, he will donate one ton of food to a local food pantry (Bishop Sullivan Center’s St. James Place). He has also successfully recruited five corporate sponsors to match that donation, bringing the total for each home run to six tons of food.
Butler is instrumental in his work with St. James Place, working in the food kitchen along with his wife as well as making the donations to the pantry itself. Due to Butler’s work in the community, his founding of the “Hit It A Ton” campaign, and his tireless work with St. James Place, he has been nominated as the Royals Representative for the 2010 Roberto Clemente Award.
Butler has connected for 15 home runs this season, sending 90 tons of food to St. James Place for their food pantry. He is also posting a career high .318 batting average and has almost raised his career batting average to the .300 plateau as it sits at .298.
Butler’s career should be an interesting one to watch for Royals fans. Hopefully through his work with local charities and his personality, he will become a player that more people from around the nation take notice of.
Bill Ivie is the editor here at I-70 Baseball as well as the Assignment Editor for BaseballDigest.com.
He is the host of I-70 Radio, hosted every week on BlogTalkRadio.com.
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