Phillies Plant Home Run Trees for Plant One Million Project
By John Town
The Phillies planted nearly a thousand trees in the name of players who brought the lumber to Citizens Bank Park in 2016.
The Phillies have been planting trees in the Philadelphia for five straight years, and they continue to do so this week. Along with the Philadelphia Horticultural Society, the team will plant nearly a thousand trees this week as part of the “Plant One Million” project.
The club made the commitment to planting trees five years ago with the “Home Runs for Trees” initiative. Before this season, the team planted more than 700 trees through the program.
161 of the trees will be tagged with the names of each Phillie that hit a home run during the 2016 season through the “Home Runs for Trees” initiative.
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25 tags will bear the name of Maikel Franco and 25 more will have Ryan Howard‘s. One will even have Cedric Hunter‘s name tagged. Remember that guy? He hit a home run, believe it or not.
Paul Kurtz of CBS Philly pointed out that even more trees would be planted if it was based off the 213 homers Phillies pitchers gave up. PHS President Matt Rader responded laughing, “I can’t comment on that.”
Had this been the Baltimore Orioles, there would be 253 trees planted based on their home run total. The 2016 home-run leader Mark Trumbo would have 47 trees planted with his name on them.
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If Kurtz’s method of “punishing” teams by making them plant a tree for every home run allowed was used, Cincinnati would be planting the most. The Reds allowed 258 home runs this year, with Dan Straily allowing 31 of those.
Rader says the goal of the “Plant One Million” project is to restore the “green canopy cover” to 30% of the land surface on the Earth. This would be the most coverage on the earth since the early 20th century according to Rader.
Rader listed off all the positive effects of planting the trees:
"“We create cooler urban environments so it addresses the urban heat island effect. Trees help clean the air, trees help beautify neighborhoods, which has positive impacts on property values and life and crime.”"
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Considering how much deforestation has happened in the world since the Industrial Revolution, initiatives like this one really help improve the Earth.