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THE BASEBALL RELIQUARY ANNOUNCES
EMMA AMAYA
AND STEVE BANDURA
RECIPIENTS OF 2013 HILDA
AND SALIN AWARDS
The Board of Directors of the Baseball
Reliquary, Inc., a Southern California-based
nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering an
appreciation of American art and culture through
the context of baseball history, is pleased to
announce the 2013 recipients of the Hilda Award
and the Tony Salin Memorial Award.
Emma Amaya, a Dodger fan extraordinaire
who has been known to dress up as Hilda Chester
on occasion, will receive the 2013 Hilda Award.
Steve Bandura, a recreation director and
baseball coach in Philadelphia who organized a
cross-country barnstorming trip for his
inner-city little league team in tribute to the
Negro Leagues, will receive the 2013 Tony Salin
Memorial Award.
Both awards will be formally presented at
the Shrine of the Eternals Induction Day on
Sunday, July 21, 2013, beginning at 2:00 p.m.,
at the Donald R. Wright Auditorium in the
Pasadena Central Library, Pasadena, California.
The festivities will include the
induction of the 2013 class of electees to the
Baseball Reliquary’s Shrine of the Eternals:
Manny Mota, Lefty O’Doul, and Eddie Feigner.
Established in 2001 in memory of Hilda
Chester, the legendary Brooklyn Dodgers fan, the
Hilda Award recognizes distinguished service to
the game by a baseball fan.
To Baseball Reliquarians, the award is
comparable to the Oscar or Emmy: it acknowledges
the devotion and passion of baseball fans, and
the many ways in which they exhibit their love
affair with the national pastime.
The 2013 Hilda recipient,
EMMA
AMAYA, was born in Honduras and arrived in
California when she was 13.
She started avidly following the Los
Angeles Dodgers in 1979, becoming a season
ticket holder in 1981.
She fondly recalls experiencing
“Fernandomania” and seeing the Dodgers beat the
Yankees in the 1981 World Series.
After a brief disenchantment with the
game in the wake of the 1994-95 baseball strike,
Amaya has come back like gangbusters, attending
most Dodger home games in recent years.
During the 2012 season, for instance,
Amaya went to every Dodger home game with the
exception of four that she missed while
attending the national convention of the Society
for American Baseball Research in Minnesota.
What’s really challenging is that she has
been able to attend all of these games while
maintaining a full-time job as a senior
programmer for a manufacturing company.
Amaya is well-known by many fellow fans
and employees at Dodger Stadium, in addition to
a number of current and former Dodger players.
Even broadcaster Vin Scully is well aware
of her enthusiasm for the team.
For Opening Day of the 2010 season, Amaya
dressed up as Hilda Chester, and she can
occasionally be seen underneath the press box or
at the top deck at Dodger Stadium before the
game yelling, “VIN SCULLY WE LOVE YOU,” the same
as Hilda used to do from her perch in the
bleachers at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field.
And when Scully hears her, he stands and
waves.
A longtime Reliquarian and avid reader
and collector of baseball books, Amaya also has
her own Dodger blog, crzblue.mlblog.com, where
she shares her addiction to the Dodgers and
baseball, and her love of Dodger Stadium, which
she proudly refers to as “Our Lady of Chavez
Ravine.”
On her selection as the 2013 Hilda
recipient, Amaya remarked, “I am thrilled and
humbled that the Baseball Reliquary has chosen
me to receive such an honor.
I still can’t believe it!”
Established in 2002 to recognize
individuals for their commitment to the
preservation of baseball history, the Tony Salin
Memorial Award is named in honor of the baseball
historian, author, and Reliquarian who passed
away in 2001.
The 2013 Salin Award recipient,
STEVE
BANDURA, is the recreation director at the
Marian Anderson Recreation Center in South
Philadelphia, where he coaches the Anderson
Monarchs little league baseball team.
In 2012, in honor of the 65th
anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s breaking of the
color line, Bandura rented a 1947 non-air
conditioned, bathroom-less tour bus, and took
the team, comprised of fifteen 10- and
11-year-olds, on a 22-day, 4,000-mile
barnstorming tour in the tradition of the old
Negro League teams.
The once-in-a-lifetime trip began with a
visit to Jackie Robinson’s gravesite in
Brooklyn, and included stops in Pittsburgh,
Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, and
other cities.
Along the way, the Monarchs played 17
games against local little league teams, and the
youngsters got to visit historic baseball sites,
meet surviving players from the Negro Leagues,
and learn much about the legacy of African
American baseball in the years before the game’s
integration.
This was actually the second barnstorming
tour that Bandura had organized for the Anderson
Recreation Center; the first was in 1997 on the
50th anniversary of Robinson’s
breaking of the color barrier.
On receiving the 2013 Salin Award,
Bandura, a Philadelphia native, commented, “I am
truly honored to be selected to receive this
prestigious award.
I am extremely fortunate to be in a
position where I’m able to dedicate my life to
connecting baseball’s past with its future.
The credit, however, belongs more to the
Anderson Monarchs players.
They are the true ambassadors who
represent and carry on the legacies of Jackie
Robinson and the great Negro League players.
They are solely responsible for
shattering stereotypes and breaking down
barriers wherever they compete.
They show the world what can be
accomplished when inner city kids are given
opportunities to succeed.
I just try to provide them with the
opportunities.”
To meet the Monarchs players and to learn
more about their 2012 barnstorming tour, visit
http://www.andersonmonarchs.org/
or their Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/andersonmonarchs?fref=ts.
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