World Series competitors express gratitude to their adoptive parents: ‘I wouldn’t be here’

Two World Series competitors have something incredible in common: they are grateful to have been adopted by loving parents, and believe they wouldn’t be where they are today without them.

Jack Flaherty, pitcher for the World Series 2024 Champion the Los Angeles Dodgers, first visited Dodger Stadium at six months old, not long after he was adopted by his mother at just three weeks old. He grew up in Los Angeles with his mother, Eileen, taking him to Dodgers games regularly. When she learned he would be traded from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Dodgers — and coming home to Los Angeles — she immediately pulled out old photos of a young Jack wearing Dodger gear.

She said at the time, “Like the romance of the fact that this kid that went to his first game at six months old, and pretty much like 28 years later, is actually stepping on the mound as a Dodger. How do you not get a tiny bit emotional and romantic about that?”

Jack and his mother remain close to this day, and he has expressed profound gratitude for being adopted.

“I don’t know when she actually told me that I was (adopted), but I’ve been thankful every day because had that not happened I don’t know where I’d be right now,” he told FanDuel Sports Network Midwest. “I don’t know what position I’d be in and I definitely wouldn’t be sitting here today.”

He said of his mother, “She’s special. She’s a special woman. And there’s no other way to put it. She’s done absolutely everything possible for me to be in the position that I’m in right now. And there’s not enough ways for me to thank her. It’s just a special relationship that we have and that we’ve built, but she’s a special woman.”

Flaherty wasn’t the only one in the 2024 World Series who has been openly celebratory of his adoption.

New York Yankees player Aaron Judge has said he feels that his adoptive parents, Patty and Wayne Judge, “kind of picked me… that God was the one that matched us together.”

His parents called his adoption day a “miracle.” Judge told CBN Sports, “[God’s] love is incredible. It has no end. The position I was in, being adopted by my parents, for them to pick me, choose me, to put me in their lives, it’s incredible.”

He added, “I know I wouldn’t be a New York Yankee if it wasn’t for my mom,” he said. “The guidance she gave me as a kid growing up, knowing the difference between right and wrong, how to treat people and how to go the extra mile and put in extra work, all that kind of stuff. She’s molded me into the person that I am today.”

Judge’s mother shared, “We’re more blessed than he is. Both of our children are adopted. Aaron has an older brother, John, 29, who is teaching English in Korea, and we’re real proud of him, too. Really, it was all meant to be.’’

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