PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. \u2014 When you come to Clover Park there\u2019s just one goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to see all my New York Mets players, let\u2019s go, baby,\u201d said Sara Roseazwig, a Florida Special Olympian.<\/p>\n
\u201cA guy like Mr. Hollywood is very excited to be out on the field with all of the Mets players. I\u2019m very excited with all the Special Olympic Athletes here,\u201d said Stephen \u201cMr. Hollywood\u201d LePore, a Port St. Lucie Special Olympian.<\/p>\n
WATCH BELOW: ‘Super cool to be able to share a moment with them,’ Christian Scott tells WPTV’s Kendall Hyde<\/p>\n
Special Olympics athletes train with Mets players<\/p>\n
Since 2015, the Clinic for Champions at Clover Park has created a rare opportunity for Special Olympics athletes to spend the day with their favorite players, learning the game and hanging with some of the game’s best.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to the players, I mean, they\u2019re my friends,\u201d said LePore.<\/p>\n
For minor leaguer Kevin Parada, reactions like that are what it\u2019s all about.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an awesome honor to play an amazing game, and it\u2019s awesome to share it with the people with the Special Olympics. It\u2019s just awesome to see the smiles on their faces,\u201d said Parada.<\/p>\n
Smiles were on full display as the athletes got to take batting practice and take the same field as the big leaguers.<\/p>\n
However, one athlete said she\u2019s learned so much that she\u2019s ready to join the Spring Training roster right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a good baseball player, I can hit and all that,\u201d said Roseazwig.<\/p>\n
If you saw her swing, she might be on to something.<\/p>\n
While the athletes learned how to flash their leather and show off their grooved swings, they told me that meeting their idols doesn\u2019t seem real.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s humbling for sure,” said pitcher, Christian Scott. “Just being able to come out here and they remember your name from last year, so that\u2019s just super cool to be able to share a moment with them and reconnect with them a year later.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. \u2014 When you come to Clover Park there\u2019s just one goal. \u201cI want to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[76816,8446,12193,171,173,172,46644],"class_list":{"0":"post-160406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-clinic-for-champions","9":"tag-clover-park","10":"tag-new-york-mets","11":"tag-port-st-lucie","12":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","13":"tag-port-st-lucie-news","14":"tag-special-olympics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}