American Baseball Foundation dinner scheduled for Jan. 31

The American Baseball Foundation will host its 19th annual Lead Off Dinner on Jan. 31 to support reading and math development for at-risk children.

The event will start at 6:30 p.m. at The Club in Homewood with a silent auction and former Major League Baseball players signing autographs. The dinner, speaker and awards will begin at 7:30.

ABF Executive Director David Osinski said the foundation has had great success with its BASIC (Baseball Academic Skills Instructional Course) program, which helps children with their reading and math skills.

“Our unique approach to improving reading and math has children rotating from a sports station to a reading or math station every 50 minutes,” he said. “All reading and math are related to sports. We implement programs that are not like school.”

The program offers incentives to children and their families to improve reading and math skills by reading together and supervising reading at home. All BASIC families can work to achieve prizes, such as tickets to the 2020 Iron Bowl.

The Lead Off Dinner helps support the afterschool and summer programs to help at-risk children coming from more than 30 schools in the Birmingham area. Osinski said the foundation raised $35,000 last year during the dinner, but this year he hopes they can raise $50,000 for the BASIC programs.

ABF has had great success in its programs, including posting the highest math gains in the program’s history during this past year. ABF’s fall brochure stated its gratitude for the hard work put into helping children.

“We acknowledge and appreciate that student sweat equity, teacher leadership, exceptional volunteers, and corporate and community financial and in-kind support combined for record numbers,” the brochure said.

ABF also works with Huntsville City Schools to offer the same BASIC programs that are offered in the Birmingham area.

Andruw Jones, former Atlanta Braves center fielder, will be the guest speaker at the dinner. Jones amassed 434 career home runs while being named an All-Star five times during his career. Jones won 10 consecutive Golden Glove awards and was named the National League MVP, Silver Slugger and the National League Hank Aaron Award winner in 2005. Jones played for five different MLB teams and played a year in Japan.

Osinski said having Jones speak to attendees and some of the children in the program is an honor.

“He was an excellent player for the Atlanta Braves who figured importantly into their decade of winning the league pennant during the 1990s,” he said.

Throughout the previous 18 years, ABF has hosted the Lead Off Dinner, the foundation has secured some big-name speakers. They have included Hank Aaron, Don Newcombe, John Smoltz, Dale Murphy, Roger Clemens and last year’s speaker David Justice.

Osinski said being able to get former professional players to speak at the Lead Off dinner is a total team effort.

“Really with the grace of God,” he said. “We have been very fortunate to have volunteers who help to seek out famous players, and our executive board helps.”

Sponsorships and tickets can be purchased at americanbaseballfoundation.com.