Thirteen-year-old Joseph Featherston got to meet some New York Yankees two summers ago when they came out to the Rockaways for Hope Week.
Every year, the team recognizes a community group and that year the Yankees sent players to spend time with Rockaway Special Athletes, an organization Joseph’s dad founded for disabled kids.
Joseph said he was awed by the Yankees. But one of the volunteers helping the special athletes also left a deep impression on him.
His name was Justin Zemser. If his name is familiar it’s for a sad reason — he was the 20-year-old Naval Academy midshipman killed when an Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia in May.