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4usnews:Baseball has the ability to touch hearts and change lives. Even the T-ball.
Take Josiah Viera, 6, Little League for the Tri-Valley White Sox in Hegins, Penn., Rural area just over 100 miles of diamond Major League Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, where his beloved Phillies play.
Faith is an extremely rare genetic condition called Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome, known as “premature aging disease, which prevented him from growing or gaining weight. He is only 27 inches tall and weighs just over 15 pounds.
He is also prone to numerous complications, and in September 2005 he was on life support because of chronic infection, collapsed lung and pneumonia.
He was not supposed to make it through the night, but he survived. Perhaps it was a true love of his life that kept him going.
Viera told his story for ESPN E: 60 program on Tuesday.
“Baseball makes me happy,” Viera told ESPN. “I like real baseball because I like to run bases.”
And against its rapidly growing opportunities, he miraculously was able to do it.
As 7-year-old sister of Josiah, Daisha, described, it is not difficult to guess that she would hear from his brother every morning.
“When he wakes up, he wanted to,” Nana, playing baseball with me, mom, play baseball with me, my sister, to play baseball with me, “Daisha told ESPN.” He just loves to play baseball all day. ”
So much that he took the initiative to approach the local Little League coach, Sam Bordner, and ask for a place in the register of the White Sox. The experiment was supposed to last only one game, as Josiah did most of them, connecting with the ball and do what he always wanted to do: speed down the line toward first.
“He hit the ball,” his grandfather, Dave Bone, told ESPN. “It’s not far – five, six feet -. And he flew to first base His pants fell down, he tries to escape his hat bouncing, and he [is] as fast as it can go, [waving] her little hands to try to get to first base.
“He makes it to first base, looks at the coach and goes:” Yes! “He’s just in heaven.
“He likes to play the game. Not to win or lose. It’s just like swinging a bat, ball and run the bases.”
And it’s even better.
Josiah got to play two games and, despite suffering two mini-strokes in June this year, he came in rather spend a memorable final day of the season.
After a story in Viera spread to a number of communities in the area, a crowd of more than 1.000 converged on the field of Hegins in 2010 Josiah Swan Song T-ball.
State representative Tim Seip participate, along with Little League administrators, Radio and ESPN.
Greg Yanchuck, Lions Club Little League coach from nearby Mahanoy City, brought about 30 players and their parents from the other small teams League event.
“A lot of people,” Hosea said ESPN.
Funds were collected for health care and Joses, and T-shirts were sold and Hegins Fire Company is working actively creating fire carnival at the end of June in honor of Josiah.
“I had a lot of people come to me since then – adults, young children, teenagers, who play softball and baseball – and say that he was his hero because he did not let his condition stop him,” Josiah’s mother, Jennifer Vera , told ESPN.
“He was put here to touch people’s lives.”
Life of Josiah was raised in June, when he and his family were treated on the day of the game the Phillies after his sixth birthday and Daisha in the seventh.
The next day turned out better than he expected.
Josiah accompany the club on Phillies slugger Ryan Howard, where he met with other players and got a bat, batting gloves and an autographed ball, according to the newspaper. In addition, the center fielder Shane Victorino signed jersey Daisha’s. The next day, Vieras went to the Philadelphia Zoo, where Josiah got to ride a camel.
“My goal has always been, in everything he ever did … [that] within a period of Josiah with us, let the experience,” Jennifer Viera told ESPN. “Let it be a kid.”
By adopting these measures, which seem simple to most, Josiah Viera has inspired people throughout central Pennsylvania, and now across America.
“They know what his condition, and they think:” [It's] legs he has, but boy, they can work base, “the grandmother of Josiah, Deb Bone, said ESPN.
“I think that’s what really touched the people – that although he has the disease, he gives his all......
