Elco grads a part of special moment in Philly

As any baseball fan can attest, you never know when something special is about to happen at the ballpark. Recent Elco grads Brayden Smith and Austen Davis can confirm that.
In attendance on an otherwise ordinary early summer night at Citizens Bank Park on Tuesday to take in the Philadelphia Phillies- Miami Marlins game, Smith and Davis ended up witnessing what will go down as a memorable moment in Philadelphia sports lore.
In the 8th inning of the Phils’ 7-4 victory over the Marlins, reserve outfielder Tony Gwynn, Jr. stepped to the plate as a pinch hitter. It was Gwynn’s first appearance in a Phillies uniform in over a week, since he had been on the team’s bereavement list in the wake of the death of his father, Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, Sr., last Monday.
By now, you’ve probably heard what happened next. More than greeting Gwynn, in his first season with the club, with polite applause, the oft-maligned Phillies faithful still in attendance showered him with a lengthy and loud standing ovation. That ovation was helped along by Marlins’ catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s impromptu trip to the mound that served to give the crowd additional time to show their respect and appreciation to Gwynn as he copes with the loss of his father.
It was a classy, heartwarming gesture that Gwynn was highly appreciative of. And one that those in attendance, like Smith and Davis, were glad to have witnessed.
“I was walking down the stairs to watch the 9th (inning) from there and I caught the tail end of it,” said Smith, a former baseball player at Elco and a member of the Raiders’ district runner-up boys’ tennis team this past spring. “On the TV on my way down I saw him walk into the on-deck circle and it didn’t occur to me (what was going on) until everyone started cheering. A very cool moment.”
Davis, Smith’s Elco tennis teammate was in complete agreement with that assessment.
“It was pretty cool to see, definitely memorable,” Davis said. “It kind of caught everyone off guard when he came up. And before you knew it everyone was up and clapping. Definitely goes to show how strong of a guy he is. Can’t imagine how hard that was to go through. It’s a shame he didn’t get a hit.”
Indeed, Gwynn did not get a hit. But the Phillies fans who were there treated him like a conquering hero anyway.