Kyle Schwarbers Dad To Throw Out The First Pitch At Great American Ball Park

 

 Also  Follow Reds on https://athlonsports.com/

Dateline: 1,209 Kilometers from the Gulf of Mexico

At 6:10 pm the former police chief of Middletown, Ohio will throw out the first pitch at Great American Ball Park on Tuesday. 

Greg Schwarber joined the Middletown police force in1980 his son Kyle was born. He retired in 2011 as the police chief. His wife Donna was a nurse. First responders are in their DNA. Now they are responding to the communities needs for team work to strengthen threw baseball.

Kyle just happens to be the Philadelphia Phillies designated hitter.

Schwarber loves to come home, not just to see his family but because he has tortured the Reds on the field in his 10-year career.

The left-hander who attended the University of Indiana, played 94 games against the Reds with 26 home runs the most against any of his opponents. Of those 26 he hit 13 at Great American Ball Park.

But this story goes beyond baseball. 

The retired police chief is working to bring baseball back to Middletown, a city that has fallen on hard times when Armco Steel, the lifeblood of the city, closed.

There was a knothole program that fell apart from lack of funding a decade ago. Greg Schwarber and Kyle's baseball coach, Jason Cabe will join him for the first pitch. Kyle is going to catch it.

"Him, Gordon Groh and Dan Culla have been working so hard to bring Little League back. It is good to see them being recognized for it," Kyle Schwarber said. "It will be fun to catch. I hope he doesn't bounce it."

After retiring from police work, Greg worked for Butler County Parks. 

"Four years ago we were approached about trying to start baseball up again in Middletown," Kyle said. "I had planned to do something like that when baseball was going to be done for me but if we were going to be involved in it we wanted to make sure it was done right. I said I have a guy for it and it was my dad."

They are not trying to find the next big leaguer. Baseball is an expensive sport and not every community can support it financially.

"I grew up with such great coaches too, Dan McCullough, Ron Groh. We have a lot of my teammates that I played with growing up helping out. Drew McCullough, Dan's son, who has kids in the program, helps out a lot. Austin Downing, he was Middletown's baseball coach. They are trying to get the kids back into it.

There was once a knothole program at Middletown's Smith Park but it was 10 years that there was no program available.

"We had a big knothole program there for years and baseball just got taken away," Kyle said. "We just wanted to make sure that kids were getting the opportunity to experience baseball."

Schwarber's charity in Philadelphia put together a big baseball equipment drive. 

"They were able to donate so much equipment," Kyle said. "Kids now will be able to go home with a glove and baseball. Now they can go home and toss with their friends or play wall ball or whatever it is, just to experience baseball. It is something we want to do for our town. It had such an impact, obviously with me but my best friends to this day are who I grew up playing baseball with. We all have kids now. It's fun now to see all of our kids growing up. To be what our parents were when we were growing up."