This story was excerpted from Maria Guardado’s Giants Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Mike Yastrzemski has spent the last four years spearheading Mustache May, which has evolved from a fun team tradition into an opportunity to spotlight mental health and raise funds for those in need. But his work in the community goes beyond that annual month-long campaign.
Through his commitment to supporting military veterans and his involvement with the local nonprofit Family House, Yastrzemski earned the Giants’ nomination for the 2024 Roberto Clemente Award, which is presented to the Major League player who best represents the game of baseball through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy and positive contributions, both on and off the field.
“It’s incredible,” Yastrzemski said. “I don’t know if there’s a better human being that’s ever played baseball. His legacy is incredible. To be even just slightly mentioned in the same sentence is an honor. To be able to be put in this position and named a finalist is a win in itself.”
Yastrzemski was formally recognized as a first-time finalist for baseball's most prestigious individual honor on Sunday, when he received a special plaque from Christina Clemente, the granddaughter of the revered Hall of Famer who died in a plane crash while attempting to deliver supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua on Dec. 31, 1972.
“When I was a kid, I had a vision of what I thought an athlete would be,” Yastrzemski said. “To be living that and have the opportunity to do it and become the person that I dreamed that I’d be able to meet one day is really cool. That’s the only thing that I’m striving to do with a lot of the off-the-field work, is to just be the person that I envisioned was an athlete when I was a kid. To get those opportunities and experiences are really special because they put a lot of things into perspective.”
Voting for the league-wide award runs through Sunday, Sept. 29, at MLBTogether.com/clementeaward. The fan vote, along with votes cast by members of a blue-ribbon panel, will determine the winner, who will be revealed during the World Series.
As part of their efforts to turn Mustache May into an awareness campaign, Yastrzemski and his former Giants teammate Austin Slater began selling custom T-shirts to benefit charities that work to raise mental health awareness. Yastrzemski dedicated his half of the proceeds to the Heart and Armor Foundation, which aims to protect the health of veterans and provide resources to those struggling with PTSD and other mental health issues. Yastrzemski and his wife, Paige, also routinely host veterans and their families at Oracle Park and helped organize an event for Giants families to assemble military care packages for service men and women returning home from deployment.
“With the veterans and Heart and Armor, I’m lucky to hear their story and give them the thanks and praise that they deserve,” Yastrzemski said.
The Yastrzemskis also volunteer regularly at the Family House, where they visit children with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. As the father of two young children, Yastrzemski said he appreciates the opportunity to provide some cheer to the patients and their families by playing baseball with them, signing autographs, taking pictures and participating in tours of the facilities and residences.
“They’re just grateful for small opportunities to take a walk, to be outside, to hit a Wiffle Ball off of a tee,” Yastrzemski said. “It’s really grounding and humbling to go through that and to be able to probably learn more from them than they do from us. It’s insane. As much as I appreciate how they say I’ve done a lot for them, they’ve probably done more for me. It’s really a treat to be able to have these opportunities just because I ended up playing baseball.”