AJC Blog: Francoeur Off the Field
By Carroll Rogers, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
August 17, 2008
For a little perspective on the Jeff Francoeur you guys don’t always see....When people tell you he’s an upbeat person, despite the miserable season he’s had, and he’s a great community guy: this is what they’re talking about.
Yesterday before the game we could see from the press box Jeff out of the field with a young man in a wheel chair. He took him out to right field to get a feel for what it must be like to stand in Jeff’s shoes, and shortly thereafter, Francoeur ran alongside him as he took a spin around the bases in his wheelchair.
At first glance, I thought maybe it was a “Make a Wish” foundation thing that Francoeur had agreed to do. But I came to find out this morning, it was all-Jeff.
Francoeur said he’d met Joshua Kane in 2005 during his first roadtrip to Philadelphia. Kane was sitting near the Braves dugout and cheering for Jeff and the Braves. Francoeur saw him every time the team went to Philadelphia from then on. The last time the Braves were up there in late July, he gave Kane his phone number and invited him for an on-the-field visit to Atlanta.
That’s what we saw on Saturday.
“It puts things back in perspective,” said Francoeur, who at 24 is six months younger than Kane. “He’d be dying to hit .228 in the major leagues.”
Francoeur got a kick - and a little scare - out of seeing Kane max out his electric wheelchair to 7 mph to go from first to third.
