Cork baseball team scale new heights for charity

Members of the Cork Renegades Baseball Team undertook a fundraising hike last month in testing conditions in aid of the Cope Foundation.

During the October Bank Holiday weekend, the group of 14 players climbed Carrauntoohil in honour of the charity and to raise funds for its vital services.

The organisation was chosen by the club as the Renegades train at Tank Field, which is close to a residential facility owned by the charity in Montenotte.

Connection

Speaking to The Echo, president of the Cork Renegades Baseball Team, Brett Sutherland, said: “Adjoining Tank Field is one of the residential facilities for the Cope Foundation. Often our balls would fly into their property, so that gave me the idea for the project.

“Because the nature of baseball, where you hit the baseball from, it’s called home plate and that being a residential facility, I created a charity incentive for the Cope Foundation called ‘Close to Home’, because I thought that was a nice little connection.

“[On the day] only eight of us made it to the summit, the weather conditions were very bad, it was quite scary, but it was for a good cause.

“We love the Cope Foundation, we love what they do. Our initial target was €500, but we have since reached €1,000. Once the donations have been fully tallied, the Cope Foundation will get in touch and we will make the handover.”

Mr Sutherland said that the team is looking to continue fundraising for the Cope Foundation into the 2025 season.

The club is also looking to secure a purpose-built facility for their training, to offer overseas teams the opportunity to come to Cork and play against the Renegades.

“Fundraising is a really important part of what we do, but finding us somewhere of our own is the most important thing,” said Mr Sutherland.

“Every week we have enquiries for new players, but it’s difficult to facilitate the growth because we don’t have the space to do so.”