EDITORIAL

Red Sox star blessed with concern for the less fortunate

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Mookie Betts’ mother rewarded her son with a huge meal after his stellar performance in game 2 of this year’s World Series (he went 3-4). Betts and his best friend since seventh grade, Cam Lewis, ate to their hearts’ content — yet there were still lots and lots of leftovers. So at 1 a.m., the two men donned their hoodies and ventured out into the 37-degree Boston night, pushing along a shopping cart that they had filled with all the leftover food. They went straightway to the Boston Public Library, where they fed a number of the city’s homeless men and women who had gathered there to sleep. Needless to say, the recipients were very grateful for the meal (some said they had not eaten all day), although they did not know the identity of the gift bearers. That fact only became public after the event was witnessed by a passerby who recognized the Red Sox All-Star outfielder.

This was not the first time Betts has reached out to feed the homeless. In 2015, he and teammate Blake Swihart bought pizza for the homeless in New York City, when the Sox were there to play a series of games against their arch-rivals, the Yankees. And it appears the Lord approved of their act of charity, because both players homered twice in back-to-back games in the series!

One article reporting about this most recent event in Boston said that “Going forward, they [Betts and Lewis] would like to distribute blankets and warm clothing to area homeless, and they would publicize that to help raise awareness, but in this case it was a simple act of spontaneous kindness.”

Our hurting world could certainly use a lot more “simple acts” like this—from all of us.