Kurkjian & Leavy Knock It Out of the Park: Big Train Base Ball & Holiday Auction a Big Hit

The more than 125 Big Train fans gathered at the KID Museum in Bethesda on Sunday night December 7 were treated to a spirited conversation by two of the most informed and creative baseball minds on the planet. ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian, a living baseball encyclopedia, and Make Me Commissioner author Jane Leavy covered a lot of ground starting with Tim’s view that this year’s World Series was the greatest of all time (and he has covered 44 of them!). Jane shared reforms she would implement from her new must read Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How to Fix It. What’s the path ahead for the Orioles? Will the MLB owners really lock us out for the 2027 season? How much longer will MLB umpires be calling balls and strikes? For answers to these questions and more, watch Tim and Jane talking baseball for forty minutes here.

For more than two decades, Big Train’s annual Base Ball & Holiday Auction has brought the Big Train family together during the off season to celebrate our victories on the field and our service in the community while allowing us to raise funds for our community service initiatives. Our two online auctions raised a record $18,257.76 to help push our Fall fundraising total beyond the $70,000 mark for the third straight year. With additional end of year tax deductible donations to the Base Ball & Holiday Auction and our David Povich Improvement Fund for Shirley Povich Field, we hope to come near matching our 2024 record. 

Our thanks to the donors of auction items, auction bidders, event sponsors, and ticket buyers who made this success possible. With great appreciation to the two dozen volunteers who rolled up their sleeves to provide our fans such a great experience, most especially our hard working auction maestros Owen Meyer and Lou Novick and director of all things technology Dick Lipsky. Thanks to our partners — KID Museum for being a perfect venue, The Bean Bag Deli for the excellent dinner and scrumptious cookies, Max’s Best Ice Cream, Just Ice Tea, artist Joseph Craig English for producing our service awards, and Wonderland Books for providing the copies of Make Me Commissioner for Jane to sign.