WASHINGTON -- Nationals relievers Blake Treinen and Sammy Solis joined members of the team's staff for a visit to the Nationals Diabetes Care Complex on Wednesday morning.
The players visited with 18 Children's National patients and eight scholars from the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy and participated in activities including baseball card exchanges, question-and-answer sessions with the children and even some cooking.
"To me, it's cool," Treinen said. "Kind of hits home a little bit. When I was younger, I was borderline type-2 diabetic, so I had to get my diet under control. It was kind of cool to volunteer somewhere like that."
Solis and Trienen stepped into a radio booth to answer a variety of questions from the children, ranging from, "What's the hardest part about playing in the Majors?" to "What's your favorite food?" Treinen showed everyone some stretching and exercise techniques, and even played a little Wii baseball and Solis participated in a cooking demonstration involving pizza and popcorn.
All of the children had their very own personal baseball cards donated from Topps, with their information such as their birthday, favorite food or mascot on the back of the cards. They had the chance to exchange those cards and autographs with both players.
"As a young guy being new to DC, just getting involved is huge," Solis said. "Both on and off the field you try to perform as well as you can. But then in your spare time -- all we know is baseball so it's nice to get away and be able to contribute a little bit to what they give us. Really because we only have our jobs because of these fans. So it's just nice to be able to mix it up and get in the mix of the people that are really paying for us to do what we do."