By Will Martin
For the third year in a row the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers have teamed up to provide some charitable contributions by way of swinging the bat in assisting the Family North Texas Youth Education of the Salvation Army in Arlington. Also assisting with this venture for the third year in a row were the people of Reliant.
In 2013, $43,000 were raised to help the Salvation Army organization. Players and coaches involved included Coach Jason Garrett, DeMarco Murray, Barry Church, Doug Free, Jason Witten, Bruce Carter, Tyron Smith, Dez Bryant, and Brandon Carr. Doing the pitching and representing for the Texas Rangers alumni 2008 was German Duran.
Doing the fielding in the outfield were a slew of Cowboys rookies to retrieve balls that were hit to them. The way the homer contest worked was as follows:
1. Each hit out of the park would net $1,000 as each batter had ten chances or ten swings (provided contact was made with the bat). Each home run gave you an extra swing of the bat. On the tenth swing of a round you were getting double the payout if you were successful.
2. Three rounds of batting took place with the upper level of hitters advancing to the next round.
3. In the final round all swings and money values were doubled and if you went on the final swing the payback was tripled. As the afternoon wore on with Rowdy and Captain Ranger inside Globe Life Park to appease the kids of YET the homer battle came down to Jason Witten and Barry Church.
Barry Church was your winner as he raised nearly 20% of the proceeds for the Salvation Army. Even still after each batter hit they took time to talk to the media about the event.
Of course the discussion came to Sean Lee being gone for the season in all likelihood.
“I was right behind him when it happened. And that’s one of my best friends on the team. Feels kind of awful,” said Barry Church. “But we have his back no matter what. That’s tough right there.”
Jason Garrett took a moment to stop by and offer his thoughts on Sean Lee and other things.
“We always want to be able to look at the entire landscape of who’s available to us,” Garrett said. “But we felt like we’ve added some resources to our team at that position – we want to give guys a chance and see what they can do.”
Should anybody be surprised that Sean Lee was at Valley Ranch to be a mentor to the youngsters despite being injured?
“He’s been hurt in the past during the season, when he’s been on IR, and we have meetings that start at 7:30 in the morning and he’s there,” Garrett said. “He’s there helping guys out when he’s inactive and he can’t play for the rest of the season. That’s the approach he’s always taken.”
Even though the Cowboys were in the house of their neighbors they were quite at home with providing some good in their third annual Reliant Home Run Contest, won by Barry Church who acknowledged the #1 perk.
‘No one can take this away from me. I’m batting champ for the next year’.
The bigger champs were the kids from Youth Education who now get fifty grand to apply towards their cause. Although the media was not privy to the check presentation or a team picture it was still a good turnout and a good time. Heck, how bad can it be when you have Brad Sham and Chuck Morgan in the same building? Likewise for Rowdy and Captain Ranger?
Next scheduled OTA for the Dallas Cowboys in case you wonder will be on June 2nd.