A South Carolina high school's send-off for graduating members of its baseball team proves there can, in fact, be crying in baseball.
Legion Collegiate Academy in Rock Hill, South Carolina, recognized the senior year players on its baseball team earlier this month with a new-to-the-school tradition that is going viral.
At a May 5 game, the nine seniors on the team each took a turn at bat, receiving a pitch from their fathers on the pitcher's mound.
As each player rounded the bases after their hit, a letter written to them by their parents was read aloud over the stadium's PA system.
The emotional send-off was captured on video by WSOC-TV reporter Hannah Goetz, who shared it on TikTok, where the video has garnered 2 million views and counting.
"There was a lot of dust in everyone's eyes after this game," Goetz, whose cousin plays on the team, captioned the video.
The school's baseball coach, Hamilton Bennett, in his first year at Legion Collegiate Academy, told "Good Morning America" that he brought the tradition over from his previous school, where he saw it as a good way to get both families and players involved.
"One thing I learned from Collegiate is how important family truly is to everybody," Bennett said in a live interview Friday on "GMA." "We wanted to make sure to honor not only the young men but the families that get to send their young men off to the next chapter of their life, honor[ing] them and thanking them for the last four years and service with us."
Will Bartnikowski, one of the school's senior players, said he "broke down" as he rounded second base and the moment hit him. The teenager, who graduates high school on Friday, said the pitch from his dad was his "last ever," as he is entering the U.S. Marine Corps and not playing college baseball.
"It was really cool that my dad was the one to throw out the last pitch, because [as I] grew up, he was the one throwing to me," Bartnikowski said on "GMA." "But, running around the bases and just getting to hear about what my mom wrote about me in the letter, I really kind of just broke down around second base."
Making the night even more memorable, Legion Collegiate Academy went onto win their game.
