Welcome to the Judge’s Chambers
Crossing Home
As a kid playing baseball, I learned pretty quickly how great it was to cross home plate. Everyone got so excited and cheered for you when you crossed home. That feeling might be one of the things that makes a kid fall in love with baseball; that moment when teammates give you high fives, and coaches and parents jump and cheer. Linden, CA has always been my home and is still the place I can retreat to during holidays. A place where family and friends gather, and I can feel surrounded by those that I care about. When I come to Linden, I cross home.
Linden is also the place where I grew up, went to school, built friendships, attended leadership camps, played sports and met my wife, so it only made sense that as we started to create the ALL RISE Foundation, we looked to build it here in my home community. We saw a lot of ways that our foundation can help youth in my hometown.
Because of the great support of my family and friends, we were quickly able to extend our reach to the first place I lived outside of Linden, my college town of Fresno. At Fresno State, my baseball dreams grew and the cheers got louder as I crossed home plate. I developed lasting friendships and the community has rallied around ALL RISE, extending our family to a larger part of California.
2022 brought some special trips across home plate for me. The kinds of runs that as a kid one dreams of. With Covid restrictions seemingly in the past, fans were back in the stands cheering for the Yankees, and my family was able to join me at the ballpark again. It also meant that this was the year that we were able to introduce ALL RISE and the work we had been doing in California to New York City.
When I walked into Cipiriani on November 18th, I was quickly reminded of those feelings of home, surrounded by family and friends. While I may not have known everyone’s name in the room, I could see they had gathered as part of the ALL RISE team to support the mission to inspire youth to reach unlimited possibilities. While ALL RISE had been scoring runs since we launched in 2019, this trip across the plate capped off a magical season. The evening put us in a great position to continue to grow our outreach in what turns out will be my new home for a long time. Our family has grown, the friendships are stronger, and the kids in Linden, Fresno and New York City will be the winners. I hope you will continue to support ALL RISE as we continue to round the bases, and stay tuned for what other dreams we make come true.