Phillies

Hamels Pitching Tonight, Helped Dole Out $200,000 to Schools This Morning

By Kyle Scott

Published: Jun 14th, 2011 · 1:43 PM EDT

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Not bad… Not bad.

We’re usually pretty snarky here, but occasionally we’ll give credit where it’s due. This morning, Cole and Heidi Hamels were on a bit of a media tour before announcing $200,000 in grants handed out by their foundation to Philadelphia public schools.

Swenson High School received the largest grant, $50,000, which will go towards building a gym that essentially doesn’t exist. The school also hosted a ceremony to announce the other recipients.

Pretty much everyone on the team is involved with some sort of charity, but $200,000 is a substantial sum of money, and, after talking to Cole and Heidi, it’s obvious they spent a lot of time touring the schools to understand their problems.

I know most of you are wondering if doing a bunch of interviews on a game day is a distraction… so I asked him about it. There wasn't really a lot of room for baseball discussion – we were in a high school library surrounded by about 20 people – but here’s a few minutes of Cole and Heidi talking about their charity, Cole’s game-day routine, and even an awkward outtake when Heidi showed up. 

I really need something better than an iPhone for this sort of thing- the audio is awful.