(Cincy 2nd Baseman) Brandon Phillips shocks Twitter follower by showing up at his game

Yahoo! Sports ^ | May 19, 2011 | Duk

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

When it comes to youth baseball, players are sometimes responsible for bringing postgame drinks and snacks for the team.

Connor Echols, however, recently put a new spin on the tradition and brought an All-Star from his local Major League Baseball team, instead.

In what may well represent the pinnacle of modern technological achievement, the 14-year-old Cincinnati Flames third baseman (@cecholzz) was able to lure Cincinnati Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips(notes) (@datdudebp) to his U-14 select team game last week by issuing a simple suggestion over Twitter ...

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Considering how many self-absorbed creeps are in the majors these days, I found this story very refreshing and reminiscent of the good ol' days when professional ballplayers actually lived in and interacted with their communities.

Good for Brandon Phillips!

[ilovesarah2012]

I love happy stories like this. I’m not a big baseball fan, but he sounds like a truly nice guy.

[r9etb]

Great story.

[outofsalt]

Class act. 10,000,000 times better than having Obummer give a commencement address.

[Rebelbase]

Well done, Brandon Phillips!

[hflynn]

Great story. My grandson played against the Cincy Flames at Cooperstown Dream Park WEEK #4 in 2009. Nice team.

[geezerwheezer]

These young men will remember his kindness for many, many years and will have a wonderful story to tell their grandchildren. I hope he hits 40 homers a year for however long he plays for the Reds, as long as they aren’t done against my Atlanta Braves!

[NEMDF]

Nice story! Thanks for sharing.

[kevkrom]

These young men will remember his kindness for many, many years

I'm quite sure many major leaguers have a story about meeting a major league player when they were kids. One of these kids may play in the majors one day and "give back" by doing the same type of thing. It's one of the things that keeps baseball going, even in this high-tech, low attention-span era in which we live.

[comps4spice]

Brandon Phillips sounds like a normal human being, not a pampered professional. Great story! Kudos to Mr. Phillips.

[mmichaels1970]

It was about 5:45 p.m. when Phillips received Echols' invitation on his off day, the only one he and the Reds will have until June 2. Phillips said he was wondering what he was going to do with the rest of his day.

"I said, 'Let me think about this,' " Phillips said. "His game was at 6:15. When I got finished eating, it was like 6:10 and I thought, well shoot, I'm going to go to his game. I had nothing else to do. I thought, 'Let me go out and support the little man.' I went out there and he had a great game. I met all his teammates. I met everybody in the park. It was fun. I had a great time."

Great job!

[ErnBatavia]

Anybody with as nice a grin as this has gotta be a pretty good guy.