Across Major League Baseball, Brock Holt is widely considered one of the best utility players in the league. In the last two years, the Red Sox star has played every position on the field except for pitcher and catcher. Yet it's his success in a role off the diamond that earned him praise this week.
Brock Holt has been a Jimmy Fund Captain since 2015. In that role, he attends fundraising events, visits patients and builds support for cancer care and research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. But if you ask the family members of the patients he's interacted with, he's done much more than that.
"He could do just the bare minimum and still be a good guy," said Shaun Clark, the father of Nixon, who is was diagnosed with leukemia in 2017 during a visit to Vermont from Australia. "He does way more than just the bare minumum, and it's awesome."
Friday, the MLB Players Association released a video of Jimmy Fund patients and their families reading thank you letters to Holt. In it, Nixon thanks his friend for sharing his Gatorade and bubble gum with him during a visit to Fenway Park, and pokes fun at him for his attempt at an Australian accent.
"It's just not very good," he said.
Dawn LeClair also thanks Holt for his friendship with her daughter Madison, who lost her battle with osteosarcoma - a type of bone cancer - in 2017 at the age of 15. Holt sent flowers to the LeClairs and posted a picture of the two of them on his Instagram page the day after she died.
"She never met a celebrity, or a famous baseball player, and to her, your friendship was not about either," Dawn LeClair said. "Going to a Red Sox game really wasn't about the game to Maddie, as it was seeing you."
