Pitchers Graham Ashcraft, Andrew Abbott and Scott Barlow joined Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center for its NjoyItAll Camp Teen Week to fish with the campers.
The CCHMC camp, held at Camp Joy in Clarksville, Ohio, allows patients with cancer, blood diseases and immune disorders to spend a week outdoors doing numerous activities. The trio of pitchers fished, chatted and signed autographs for the camp-goers.
Abbie Caplinger, the camp’s director, explained what an opportunity it was having the Reds’ pitchers on-site.
“[All of us] were super excited to have them out here,” Caplinger said. “We had one of our kids look at Andrew Abbott and was like, ‘Oh, you’re really him!’ It’s almost like a disbelief that they’re out here and actually seeing them in person. Many of [the campers] don’t get to experience Reds games, so really getting out here and interacting with them makes it even more special.”
The conditions these kids are coping with would usually prevent them from going out and enjoying a weeklong camp. However, the camp has a full medical staff, which allows campers to enjoy their time while having any requirements fulfilled.
One of the campers, Jackson Herrmann, is in his third year of attending the NjoyItAll Camp. Herrmann, an avid fisherman, got into fishing by doing so at the camp. For him, being able to enjoy his hobby with MLB pitchers opened his eyes to the fact that the players are like anyone else.
“I think it's pretty cool because you don't get to see the Reds players every day,” Herrmann said. “Until today, I didn't know that some of the Reds players were fishermen. They're baseball players, you wouldn't expect that they would be fishermen too. That just gives me another point of view. They're not just baseball players. They're people. They have other hobbies.”
Armed with bread as bait, Abbott, Ashcraft and Barlow spread out around the pond and fished with the campers. With all players being outdoorsmen in their downtime, the activity is a second language, with Abbott believing that "it comes easy" for them to teach and that "it's easy to communicate and kids want to learn it."
But of course, the pitchers all had a competitive drive to outfish the others.
“Hopefully, the kids are the ones that catch it. We're just here to help,” Abbott said. “To see the joy on the little girl’s face that I was with when she reeled it in was what you want in life. [It’s] just endless happiness, just smiling, having a great old time. It is a competition between us to see who can lead them to the promised land. But at the end of the day, it's all fun.”
Even for the players, this outing was special. Getting out and being able to fish during a 162-game season surely doesn’t happen as much as the pitchers would like. To be able to help pass the hobby on to the youth only furthers its rarity.
“It's really special,” Barlow said. “Even as a young kid, a lot of my good memories are from fishing. [You always] remember the time you catch your first fish. It's something special that you never forget. Getting to see some kids going fishing for the first time out here and then seeing their first time catching a fish [is special].”
Coming into the day, the pitchers had a goal of catching more fish than their total from two years ago. By the end of the outing, they had tied their total of two fish from 2023.
Ashcraft, a self-professed “big hunter and fisherman,” knows that being able to fish, talk and hang out with the kids offers an “escape” from what they must deal with on a daily basis.
The Huntsville, Alabama, native was grateful to be able to give back to the young fans in the way they did.
“[The] biggest thing is just giving back to them,” said Ashcraft. “Those kids do so much, they support us through so much. Just being able to come back here and give back to them, I wish we could give back more than just an hour of our time. Those kids do a lot more for us than we do for them. It’s just the way you want to give back to them.”