This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Kingston Jones can recite statistics like he’s reading a player page off the top of his head, from standard numbers to key splits. He knows prospect rankings, too, and where Riley Greene stands. As Tigers shortstop Javier Báez stepped to the plate Tuesday night against Padres starter Mike Clevinger, the 15-year-old fan had a good feel of the chances for a hit.
As Kingston played catch with Báez earlier in the day, he had a pretty good idea about his arm, too, no numbers needed.
“He told me I was really good at catching the ball,” the teenager said. “I missed on some throws, but I could catch.”
This was literally a dream come true for Kingston, who has idolized Báez ever since he was an up-and-coming Cubs prospect. Part of the appeal was Báez’s energetic style of play. Part of it was the All-Star’s connection with spina bifida, which Kingston has been battling.
Spina bifida occurs when a baby’s spinal cord doesn’t develop properly. While there are less than 200,000 cases each year in the United States, the impacts are wide-ranging, depending on the severity. Through medical advancements, babies born with the condition are increasingly able to lead full, productive lives.
It’s a cause close to Báez’s heart. His sister Noely was born with the same condition. She wasn’t expected to live long from birth, but made it to adulthood. Their family moved from Puerto Rico to Jacksonville in order to get medical care.
When Noely Báez passed away from complications in 2015 at age 21, Javier made it his cause to support efforts to battle the condition and help those who fight it. When the Cubs won the World Series title in 2016, his ring bearer for the presentation ceremony was a spina bifida survivor.
“It’s certainly very personal with him,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “Javy is remarkable. All the things we see on the field and the bravado, the mystique that Javy plays with, he has a huge heart. And he’s very personable on top of this being super emotional and personal for him. I’m very proud of him for walking down that emotional path for the benefit of somebody else.”
Kingston and his family were Cubs fans living in Illinois, so the tie-in was natural. They met briefly at a game at Wrigley Field on Mother’s Day in 2016. Báez hit a walkoff home run to beat the Nationals, and Kingston was a fan for life, even after his family moved to Florida, following from afar.
When Kingston had to go to a hospital last year, a worker there mentioned Children’s Dream Fund, a foundation that for 40 years has been fulfilling dreams for children in west-central Florida battling life-threatening illness. Soon, they connected.
“They were like, ‘Dream as big as your heart can dream,’” Kingston’s mother, Katy, said. “And Javy was his first hero, so to speak. And they set it all up. It was so quick.”
It was quick enough that the dream was set up last fall, but they had to wait to find out where the free agent would be playing. Once Báez signed with the Tigers at the end of November, they had to wait until the season and schedule were set to plot out a trip to Detroit.
Not only did Kingston and his family get a limousine to the airport and a trip to Comerica Park and prime seats to a Tigers game, they spent the better part of a week in Detroit, including a visit to the Detroit Zoo and a visit around the city. But clearly the highlight was the guy at short.
“At the beginning, I was [starstruck],” Kingston said.
Before the Tigers took batting practice, Báez took Kingston onto the field to play catch. Later, he had a chance to hit in the batting cage. Báez also introduced him to teammate Miguel Cabrera.
“He was really nice,” Kingston said. “He was pretty down-to-earth.”
Kingston and his family received a VIP tour of the ballpark, from the press box to the broadcast booths to the statues along the outfield concourse. They met Hall of Famer Jack Morris and broadcaster Matt Shepard. When they settled into their seats down the first-base line, clearly the target was the guy at short.
Báez contributed a single in the sixth inning and turned a slick double play to end the seventh. He didn’t hit a walk-off homer in the Tigers’ 6-4 loss, but he scored a run as the Tigers tried to rally in the 10th.
Didn’t matter. For one family, he was already a hit.