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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Hey, hey, hey.
00:11 Welcome back.
00:11 We are out here at the sixth annual Sanderson-Ford Guardian
00:15 Games.
00:16 And as you can tell, we are here at the Diamondbacks,
00:19 a home run derby over here.
00:21 Before I get into chatting a little bit with my special
00:23 guest here, Grady, check out the game a little bit,
00:25 because our athletes are crushing it out there.
00:29 This is the home run derby, like I said.
00:32 This is all about the D-backs.
00:33 So of course, they're out here hitting.
00:36 They're getting some great pitches.
00:37 It just looks like a blast.
00:39 And everybody is having a great time.
00:42 But let's go ahead and chat a little bit
00:44 with our special guest here.
00:45 This is Eric Figueroa.
00:46 Eric, thank you so much for being with us.
00:48 Tell us a little bit about what you guys
00:50 are doing out here today.
00:51 Sure, yeah.
00:51 So this is my third year coming out to this event.
00:54 Every year I come out, it's absolutely amazing.
00:56 Having our Baseball Academy staff out here,
00:58 our youth baseball ambassadors, our youth academy coaches,
01:01 just being able to provide the basic instruction
01:03 for these kids, and really just showing them
01:05 the ropes of the game, and really just
01:07 having them fall in love with a game that we all love,
01:08 which is baseball.
01:10 Definitely.
01:10 It's such a special event.
01:11 Just the whole event today, everything
01:13 going on with the Guardian games.
01:15 What does it mean to you to get to see these athletes coming
01:17 out here and hitting and pitching
01:19 and just having a great time?
01:20 Absolutely.
01:21 So these kids have a passion, as you can see.
01:22 They're making contact.
01:23 They're having fun.
01:24 They're smiling.
01:25 So anytime they hit the baseball,
01:26 they're super excited.
01:27 And again, just being able to provide instruction
01:30 for these kids, which they probably never get day to day,
01:33 is pretty awesome.
01:33 And we do this on a daily basis throughout the whole year.
01:36 So for us to come out and be able to spend time
01:38 with them for at least one day for a few hours
01:40 and provide that instruction, it's awesome.
01:42 It really is.
01:43 And I heard tell that there might
01:45 be a little bit of a special guest appearance
01:48 maybe at some point.
01:50 We'll see.
01:51 I have not been told that information,
01:53 but it'll be a surprise to me as well.
01:55 But we're always having our players and coaches come out
01:58 to events like this.
01:59 I would not be surprised.
02:00 Well, we got a home run winner right here.
02:03 You hit a home run?
02:03 Yeah.
02:04 Yeah.
02:04 It's great.
02:06 Congratulations.
02:07 All right.
02:08 Well, see, these are the kind of things
02:09 that you see when you come out here to the Sanderson-Ford
02:12 Guardian Games.
02:13 This is so special and so awesome.
02:15 Yeah, Eric, don't leave us just quite yet.
02:17 I was going to ask you a little bit more just
02:19 about what it means to have the Diamondbacks sponsoring this.
02:22 I mean, how much are they involved?
02:24 Obviously, it's all kind of decked out in the gear.
02:27 What does that mean exactly?
02:28 Yeah, definitely.
02:29 Having our brand out here--
02:30 obviously, Sanderson-Ford's one of our partners
02:32 with Arizona Diamondbacks.
02:33 So being able to come out and support our partner
02:36 in Sanderson-Ford and having our brand, our image out here--
02:40 you see our banners hung up.
02:41 We're all decked out in D-backs gear.
02:43 So when these kids see us, the presence out here
02:46 at the Diamondbacks, ultimately, they
02:47 want to have that big league dreaming experience
02:49 and hopefully one day be in our shoes,
02:51 whether it's working for the front office
02:52 or being a player on the field.
02:53 So it's actually--
02:54 That's very cool.
02:55 Being involved with the Diamondbacks in any way
02:56 and having all of these logos out here,
02:58 it definitely hypes everybody up,
02:59 makes everybody really excited to be out here.
03:02 So we're going to let the athletes keep
03:05 on playing back there, keep on enjoying,
03:07 keep on hitting those home runs like you
03:09 saw just a second ago from our special athletes.
03:11 They're doing a great job.
03:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]