Adam Crognale used crutches to move from his hospital bed to the window while his mother rolled his IV pole. He was diagnosed two months earlier with lymphoma, forcing him to stay at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for weeklong chemotherapy treatments.
The cancer robbed Crognale of his summer in 2014 as the 15-year-old cycled in and out of the hospital. He lost his long brown hair and watched steroids puff his face, and he couldn’t go to Phillies games.
But Crognale refused to let the cancer stop him that July from going to the window and watching fireworks erupt over the ballpark across town.
“We could actually see them,” he said. “It’s not where you want to see them from, but we could.”
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It is moments like that — “We smashed our faces up against the window so we could see the fireworks,” Crognale’s mother said — that make everything now feel a bit surreal.
Crognale, 25 years old and cancer free, is in his fourth season as the Phillies’ batboy. He started working for the team in 2019, hawking 50-50 charity tickets in the seating bowl while studying journalism at Temple. Two years later, he was in the dugout with Bryce Harper.
Crognale, with a chemotherapy port in his chest, trained himself that summer in the hospital to be nocturnal. There were better options — mostly baseball and sitcoms — on TV at night. He went to CHOP on Monday morning, stayed all week for chemo, went home for a few days, and did it all again while watching the Phils every night.
“The Phillies really got me through it,” Crognale said.
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Crognale already had a positive disposition, but his summer with cancer emboldened that outlook. All they could do, his mother said, was stay positive and trust the doctors. The cancer had a strong survival rate, but the summer was still difficult. Positivity and some baseball kept Crognale going.
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That experience, Crognale said, taught him that “every day can’t be taken for granted.” So he made it his mission to spread positivity everywhere he went, from the halls of Cherry Hill East High to the journalism classes at Temple, and now to the Phillies dugout.
“Baseball is a grind,” said Phil Sheridan, the team’s manager of clubhouse services. “It can wear people down. But he’s always positive. He’s a fan, but he’s not a fan. He hates when we lose and he loves when we win. He’s excited by it. He enjoys being a part of it. He doesn’t get a big head from it, but he loves to be a part of it in a way that most people never will.”
A dream job
Kyle Schwarber broke his bat last October on a foul ball in Arizona, sending the slugger back toward the dugout in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. Crognale was ready.
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“He gives me the new bat and I said, ‘Is this the one?’ He goes ‘Yep,’ ” Schwarber said. “Then I hit a homer. He’s going, ‘I told you that was the one.’ It’s little things like that. I don’t know how many times I’ll be sitting here and talking crap to him and he shoots it right back to me. Those are the things that are fun.
“It’s not just getting our bats or getting our equipment. It’s the one-liners. You could be grinding in your head a little bit before you get into the on-deck circle and then he says something to you and it puts a smile on your face. You’re like, ‘All right. I’m ready to go.’ We’re all just humans who play baseball. He treats us like that.”
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Phillies bat boy Adam Crognale jokes with Garrett Stubbs before the game against the Rangers on May 22, 2024 at Citizens Bank Park.
Phillies bat boy Adam Crognale jokes with Garrett Stubbs before the game against the Rangers on May 22, 2024 at Citizens Bank Park.
Charles Fox / Staff Photographer
Crognale arrives at the ballpark about seven hours before first pitch. He hangs the uniforms at the lockers, folds towels, fills the water coolers, gets sunflower seeds ready, polishes batting helmets, and makes sure the bullpen is stocked with supplies. He ends his night scraping dirt off the players’ cleats and hanging washed uniforms to dry.
Batboy is a part-time gig, the bottom rung in the clubhouse services department. Crognale won’t do it forever and hopes to stick with the Phillies in a full-time position. For now, this is a dream job with the chance to make an impact.
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“I like to think that I have a way of rubbing positive energy onto people,” Crognale said. “I had an internal goal going into my time as a batboy to do everything I could to bring positive energy and try to get us back to the playoffs.”
“The Phillies really got me through it.”
Adam Crognale, on his battle with cancer
Crognale grew up a crazed fan, falling for the Phils just before they started the magical run that included the team’s last World Series title.
“We didn’t have a lot of money when he was growing up,” said Crognale’s mother, Tory Jenson. “Every year, I would tell him that we could either go to the Shore for a couple days or we could go to a couple Phillies games. He always chose the Phillies games. That was like our vacation.”
Phillies bat boy Adam Crognale waits on the stairs to the Phillies dugout to take baseballs to the home plate umpire during the game against the Rangers on May 22, 2024 at Citizens Bank Park.
Phillies bat boy Adam Crognale waits on the stairs to the Phillies dugout to take baseballs to the home plate umpire during the game against the Rangers on May 22, 2024 at Citizens Bank Park.
Charles Fox / Staff Photographer
That crazed fan now feels like a part of the team. The Phillies entered June with baseball’s best record, rattling off wins with a roster of likable personalities. They have leaders like Schwarber, characters like Brandon Marsh, party hosts like Garrett Stubbs, and superstars like Harper. They also have a culture where the batboy feels like more than the guy who cleans their cleats.
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“They’re amazing,” Crognale said. “They make you feel welcome. They care about you. If something is going on, they want to know about it. They’re cracking jokes with you in the dugout. They’re just a really fun group of guys. We’re there to help them, but they don’t treat us that way. I can’t thank them enough as a team because they don’t have to do that. But they do. And it makes me have a lot more fun every day.”
A positive force
Crognale was trying out for his high school baseball team in the spring of 2014 when he felt excruciating pain in his right knee. He had an MRI, was sent to CHOP, and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma was diagnosed. Crognale briefly thought his leg might get amputated before doctors assured him that everything would be OK. He just needed to stay positive.
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“It was horrible,” his mother said. “There’s not a lot of support for parents, so whenever I hear about other parents going through it, my heart goes out to them. It’s the hardest thing in the world to watch your kid suffer and you can’t do anything about it.”
“I’m a firm believer that what you believe will manifest itself into your life. Stay positive and good things will happen. If you give into negative thinking, it’ll drive you down. That’s just my life philosophy and I tried to share it with him. But he was positive to start with. He was born a positive little force.”
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