LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- The Mets saw firsthand this year how impactful Major League Baseball's annual Winter Meetings Auction can be. Founded more than half a decade ago, the event last year benefited the family of late Mets staffer Shannon Forde, whose hometown of Little Ferry, N.J., received a brand new softball complex in her name. Various luminaries, including Mets players past and present, made the trip to New Jersey last June to attend the field's dedication.
"It's sort of surreal," Forde's sister, Alicia Dalton Reilly said. "I knew the impact she had on people. I knew everybody loved her. I just never realized how far it reached."
• Winter Meetings Auction
The funding came exclusively out of MLB's Winter Meetings Auction, which this year will benefit a new scholarship fund in the name of late MLB executive Katy Feeney. The scholarship will go to a student studying sports management at the University of San Francisco.
Now live at MLB.com/wintermeetingsauction, this year's event includes the following Mets items:
• A dinner with SNY broadcasters Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling at Citi Field, as well as a tour of SNY's new studios in downtown Manhattan
• The opportunity to throw out a ceremonial first pitch at Citi Field, deliver the lineup card to home plate with manager Mickey Callaway, attend Callaway's pregame and postgame news conference, and watch the game from the press box and photo booth
• A tour of the Mets Hall of Fame with John Franco and Mookie Wilson
All three items also include tickets to a Mets game at Citi Field, with proceeds going directly to the Katharine Feeney Memorial Scholarship Fund. Feeney, who will also be recognized at the Baseball Writers' Association of America's annual New York chapter dinner in January, had a career in baseball that spanned four decades.