The Baseball Assistance Team (B.A.T.) has set a record for contributions during the 2022 Spring Training Fundraising Tour with nearly $3.6 million committed by over 1,400 players, coaches and front office staff members among all 30 MLB Clubs. B.A.T. has also named the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox as recipients of the 2022 Bobby Murcer Award in the National League and American League, respectively, for the Clubs who donated the most to B.A.T. during the Fundraising Tour. The Murcer Award is named after the former B.A.T. Chairman who launched the tour to raise money to allow the organization to offer assistance to more members of the Baseball Family who are in need of help with financial, psychological or physical burdens.

The Baseball Assistance Team, now in its 37th year, is a unique organization within the sport dedicated to confidentially assisting members of the Baseball Family who are in need through charitable contributions in a variety of forms, including financial grants, healthcare resources and rehabilitative counseling.

During the Spring Training Fundraising Tour, B.A.T. board members Adam Jones and Eduardo Perez joined B.A.T. President Buck Martinez, staff and previous grant recipients.

“We are so grateful to all the managers, coaches, players and staff who helped us set this fundraising record,” said Martinez. “This group continues to be the most generous in all of professional sports, and they understand that there are many involved in this game who never earned the salaries we see today and who have fallen on difficult situations. Baseball truly is a family, and when you’re a family, you take care of those who need it most. I want to offer an extra display of appreciation to the Dodgers and White Sox who lived up to the spirit of our late friend Bobby Murcer. He cared deeply about B.A.T. and its mission. We strive to make him proud every day.”

Amid the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, B.A.T. almost doubled the amount of members of the Baseball Family they helped than they previously had in their entire three-decade-plus history. Over that two-year span, B.A.T. provided $12.1 million in assistance to more than 4,100 applicants, covering mortgage/rent, household expenses, prescriptions, medical bills, utilities, health insurance, therapy, outstanding debt, funeral expenses, auto payments/insurance and educational/vocational opportunities. The vast majority of the applicants are former players, with others receiving help including scouts, umpires, athletic trainers, Negro League players and front office staff. 90% of the applicants were under 50 years old and whose income is less than $20,000 per year, with 79% residing in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Puerto Rico and other South American or European countries.

To date, the organization has awarded more than $59 million in grants, benefiting more than 9,100 members of the Baseball Family, including current and former, on-field Major & Minor League personnel (players, managers, coaches) as well as scouts, umpires, athletic trainers, Major & Minor League front office personnel, Negro League players, and players from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. B.A.T.’s coverage also extends to widows, widowers and children, ages 23 and under, of the above groups. All aid provided by B.A.T. is strictly confidential, allowing those in need to receive help discreetly. For more information about the Baseball Assistance Team, please visit: BaseballAssistanceTeam.com, Facebook.com/BaseballAssistanceTeam or Twitter.com/BATcharity.