It’s not every day a Little Leaguer gets to meet a professional baseball player.

But that happened July 3 when JR Ritchie returned to Bainbridge Island for the 20th Stars and Strikes Alumni baseball game fundraiser. He pitched for BHS last year and is now in the Atlanta Braves farm system.

“People heard he was coming,” said Monica Knight, one of the Booster moms. “The Little Leaguers were so excited to see him. It was so precious.”

Ritchie signed some of his rookie cards, which were a major attraction at the silent auction, which raised $1,900. It also included Tampa Bay Rays gear and autographed memorabilia, Seattle Mariners and Kraken tickets, and more.

Knight said she expected to raise around $4,000 but about $6,500 was made from sponsors, tickets, player registration, concessions and the silent auction. “It’s super important, especially last year since there was no money in the booster account,” she said.

Before the game, she and Anna Katherine Curfman reached out through emails and collected around $2,500 from a handful of sponsors, including Sound Repro Graphics and the Biddle Foundation.

For now, they are trying to figure out how to spend the money, since there are so many needs.

“I would like to see the turf field so we don’t have to water, mow and maintain these fields,” assistant coach Gregg Mesmer said. “Other than that, we need a lot of groundwork stuff to work on.”

Knight added: “We are going to buy pants to match the new jerseys. We will assess what we need next and do some fundraising for batting cages.”

In addition, the boosters have looked to get a new storage shed, grandstands and upgrade the drainage system.

“It is the greatest day of the year for me because I get to see my boys come back and be a community,” Messmer said.

Hundreds of fans swarm the field to support Bainbridge High School baseball.