The Sunday Dispatch booth (booth 47) at the Tomato Festival is always a hit. This year, however, the Dispatch is bringing star power to its stand.
Former Major League Baseball player Andy Ashby will sign autographs and pose for pictures from 6 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 22. The Dispatch will provide each person with an 8×10 photo of Ashby to sign. For each autograph, a donation of any amount is asked. Dispatch Dollars may be used.
All proceeds from the Sunday Dispatch booth on Saturday will go directly to the Jenkins Township Little League. Ashby’s four daughters, Ashton, Madison, Eastin and Taryn, all played Little League for Jenkins Township and all four have attended Pittston Area High School or Scranton Prep with a focus on sports.
While playing for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons in Moosic, Ashby met his wife, the former Tracy Tigue. When he retired, Ashby made a home in the Grreater Pittston area in which he played early in the 1991 and 1992 seasons on the last step before debuting in, then settling into, his career in the majors. The family now resides in Jenkins Township in the Pittston Area School District, the school from which Tracy graduated.
San Diego, where Ashby had his greatest successes, became the family’s second home. Ashby worked 20 Padres broadcasts last summer as a studio analyst for Fox Sports San Diego and is doing eight more this summer.
Eastin, Madison, Taryn and Ashton are responsible, however, for the bulk of the time Andy spends watching and analyzing sports these days. Their multiple sports interests, including occasionally as opponents or on teams playing in different places on the same nights, make it challenging, but Andy and Tracy are there cheering on their daughters at the vast majority of their events and performances.
