Young ball players enjoy special hour with super star Skenes

A group of lucky boys and girls got to spend an hour with Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes on June 27.

Young baseball and softball players, including 25 from four local organizations — Ingomar, Hampton, Fox Chapel and North Hills — were invited to the first-ever Pack Wars event at Dick’s House of Sport in Ross Park Mall.

“The kids here today are all from local organizations that we sponsor, and to have probably the biggest star in Pittsburgh right now here in an intimate setting brings a lot of excitement,” said Maureen Lawrence, field marketing manager at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

The Pack Wars event was hosted by Big League Cards store owner Alan Narz of Orlando, Fla.

“We are a big card store down in Orlando. We’ve even won the nation’s best card store two times,” Narz said.

Even though this was the first Pack Wars at Dick’s House of Sport, Narz is no stranger to Pack Wars either. He travels all around hosting trading card gatherings and conventions.

“I travel the country doing these Pack Wars at Major-League All-Star games and the Super Bowl. I have a good relationship with Topps, and Dick’s reached out to me about doing this event here today,” Narz said.

Pack Wars is an intense game where all the kids are given multiple different packs of sealed baseball trading cards and then told when to open them and what to look for. Paul Skenes assisted Narz in selecting the categories for which the kids had to find. Heaviest weight of a player in the pack or tallest player in the pack were some of the categories chosen by Skenes. As the kids shouted out their answers, they were given extra tickets to a drawing for an autographed Paul Skenes baseball, among other gifts.

Six-year-old Elle Hestin of Franklin Park, a softball player at Ingomar Franklin Park Little League, got her ticket chosen and won a mega box of Topps trading cards.

“What a great event. So much fun for the kids,” said Elle’s father, Chris.

The official invitation to the event noted Paul Skenes would not be signing autographs, but Dick’s House of Sport had a big surprise for all the children in attendance.

“We wanted to surprise all the kids because we knew they all wanted his autograph so each kid is leaving with a 4-by-6 picture of Paul Skenes that he signed right before coming on stage,” Lawrence said.