Yesterday former Rainiers player Raul Ibanez accepted the annual Hutch Award in a ceremony at Safeco Field.
Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center presents the award annually to the Major League player who “best exemplifies the fighting spirit and competitive desire of Fred Hutchinson by persevering through adversity.”
This award honors players for their off-field contributions. From today’s Seattle Times story, check out this list of projects Ibanez donates his time to:
He chairs the annual Mariners Care Cystic Fibrosis golf tournament, supports Page Ahead Children’s Literacy Program, works with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Boys & Girls Clubs, Seattle Children’s Hospital, Treehouse, Covenant House Pennsylvania and Project H.O.M.E. and serves as a spokesman for the Mariners’ “Refuse to Abuse” campaign.
Ibanez became the third former Tacoma player to win the award. He joins Willie McCovey (1960 Tacoma Giants, Hutch Award in 1977) and Jason Giambi (1994 Tacoma Tigers, Hutch Award in 2000).
As an organization, the Mariners do a tremendous job of emphasizing to players the importance of giving back to their communities. This starts in the minor leagues, and the emphasis grows as players move up the chain. In his season-opening team meeting the past seven years, manager Daren Brown always strongly encouraged his players to participate in Rainiers community outreach programs.
Ibanez came up through the Mariners farm system, and he really took that organizational philosophy to heart and made it a part of his life regardless of which team he was playing for. I’m sure he’ll continue to do good work in the community while he’s with the Angels this season.
We’re proud to claim Raul as a former Rainiers player.
Links:
- The News Tribune’s Bob Dutton has a unique perspective on Raul Ibanez, having covered him when he established himself in Kansas City.
- If you are curious about Fred Hutchinson‘s story and why the award is named for him, his Wikipedia page is actually quite thorough.
- Here is the news story on the Mariners signing Scott Baker, with quotes from Jack Zduriencik.
- For ESPN Insiders, Keith Law’s Top 10 Mariners Prospects are right here.
- I was a guest on the Lookout Landing podcast and if you can survive all of my rambling there are a few decent Rainiers stories.
- The Orioles hired Brian Moran‘s uncle as a special assignment scout.
- The new baseball cards are here! The new baseball cards are here! The new baseball cards are here! Jim Caple writes.
- The season is approaching – I ordered my scorebook today. If you are into keeping score, these are the best books.
Have a Super weekend!
Booth, Justice and the American Pastime 
Mike
Why haven’t you mentioned the essay that you wrote on the Seattle Mariners in the 2014 Baseball Prospectus book? Great work. You should be proud. Is this the first piece of work that you’ve done for BP?
Great meeting you last spring at the practice fields in Surprise. Hope to see you again in March. The Mariners don’t know what they are missing.
Bill
Hey Bill, that BP essay is in the book only so I can’t link to it. My copy hasn’t arrived yet – I’m curious to see how it was edited/presented. I did write a guest column for their website at this time last year. Thanks for the kind words – I’ll be on the back fields March 24-27!
Looks like I won’t be seeing you on the practice fields this spring. One of my grandsons, who is a Senior at West Linn HS, will be in the Phoenix area to play in a baseball tournament during the last week of March. I cannot miss out on that.
Hope to see you again at some point in time.
Bill