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Puig: ‘One of the best days of my life’

Yasiel Puig with a Camp Simcha camper.

Baseball star Yasiel Puig visited a Jewish camp for kids with cancer and called it “one of the best days” of his life.

Puig, an outfielder for the Cleveland Indians, rented a helicopter to visit Camp Simcha in New York’s Catskill Mountains on Aug. 26. It’s an overnight Jewish summer camp for children and teens with cancer and other illnesses.

Puig, a former All Star, had a free day between series against the Yankees and Mets.

He decided to visit the camp after a request from Irv Bauman, whom he met in 2013 when he was playing with the Dodgers. Bauman’s grandson was working at the camp and asked his grandfather if he could finagle a visit from Puig.

Puig wore a fake tiger head over his trademark bright-red dyed hair and first removed it when he entered a room full of children, who went crazy when they saw him.

He spent four hours at the camp participating in camp activities and sat in the infirmary with a boy who was too sick to participate.

“[A boy] started talking about baseball, saying, ‘I love the way you play. Keep going, fight,’” Puig said.

“And I said, ‘Oh, I’m the one coming here to tell you to keep fighting and everything will be fine, and you’re the one telling me to keep going, fight and work hard’ — and that made my day.”

After his visit he tweeted:

He also posted a video of his visit.



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