WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, N.Y.—
On May 15, 2009 Yankee center fielder Brett Gardner hit an inside the park home run, the first ever at the new Yankee Stadium. What wasn't known at the time was the inspiration behind the rare sports feat. It was a teenage girl named Alyssa Esposito who he had visited in a hospital a few hours earlier. She needed a heart. He needed a hit.They met at New York Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Center through Project Sunshine, an organization whose volunteers pay visits to sick children. The organization uses bracelets as fund raisers. Eighteen-year-old Alyssa gave a bracelet to Bret, telling PIX News, " I gave him the bracelet. I said hit a home run. This bracelet will make you hit a home run if you wear it."
Gardner, the Yankee, was understandably skeptical. "Alyssa gave me a bracelet and told me it'll make me hit a home run. Yeah, I thought to myself, yeah right, cause I don't hit many home runs."
But he did that night, and something else happened Alyssa tells PIX. "That same night I got the call for the heart."
Today the pair reunited talking about what is now being called the "magic" Project Sunshine Bracelet.
Her parents think it was much bigger than pure luck. "All the things that happened, it was an inside the park homerun, it wasn't over the fence. Just incredible, he wasn't supposed to play until somebody got ejected. I think it was the man above that just knew what he was doing," Tony Esposito, Alyssa's father, tells PIX News.
And Alyssa's prognosis: "She's actually doing fantastic. She was very, very sick before her transplant," Juvenile Cardiologist Dr. Linda Addonizio tells PIX News.
"A lot more energy than I did before", a beaming Alyssa tells PIX, adding she graduates from high school tomorrow and is looking forward to college.
Gardner is looking forward to his season and jokingly adds, "Hopefully she'll bring us some good luck."
