Missing Child Featured on Crosscutters Team Photo in 2010 Found Alive
Published on May 7, 2013 under New York-Penn League (NYPL)
Williamsport Crosscutters News Release
A missing girl featured on the Williamsport Crosscutters team photo in 2010 has been found.
Gina DeJesus, who went missing in the Cleveland, Ohio area on April 2, 2004, was found alive along with two other missing females on Monday. All three were found alive, apparently kidnapped and held for years as prisoners inside a house on Cleveland's near West Side.
"This is incredible news," said Gabe Sinicropi, Crosscutters Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations. "We hosted Gina's mother and other members of her family at Bowman Field on the night of the team photo giveaway back in 2010. It was heartbreaking to listen to their story at the time and see the tremendous pain the family lived with every day. While you hoped for a happy ending to the story, deep down you couldn't help but think the worst."
The Crosscutters were one of a handful of teams across the country that joined former Williamsport Cubs pitcher Dennis Bair, the founder of BairFind, to feature a missing child on their 2010 team photos.
Bair explained at the time, "Like all of us, I have seen countless photos of missing children on milk cartons and on flyers in the mail. I always ended up throwing the milk carton away when the milk was gone. Then it hit me! If a ballplayer could sign the photo and give it to a kid at a baseball game, that kid would actually look at it and, better yet, keep it and show it to their family and friends! I could enlist children themselves in the search for a missing child - and double the amount of eyeballs in the search! I could bring new hope to the parents of a missing child."
"The entire Crosscutters organization sends our best wishes to Gina and her family," Sinicropi said. "At an appropriate time, we hope to reach out to them and invite them back to the ballpark. This time with Gina."
Opening Night 2013, presented by Blue Cross of Northeastern PA and KISS-FM, is slated for Monday, June 18 as the Crosscutters host the rival State College Spikes.
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- Missing Child Featured on Crosscutters Team Photo in 2010 Found Alive - Williamsport Crosscutters
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