By Dylan Butler
March Madness has taken on a whole new meaning for a pair of basketball playing brothers from Richmond Hill.
After learning that a documentary about their struggle to be reunited with their crack-addicted mother was nominated for an Oscar and that they would get tickets to the awards ceremony, Danny and his younger brother Raymond Jacob found out last Thursday the tab to fly them and their grandparents to Los Angeles was being picked up by New York Mets slugger Mo Vaughn.
The Jacob brothers are the subject of a 27-minute documentary called “Why Can’t We Be a Family Again?” by Palisades-based Public Policy Productions Inc. It is nominated in the Documentary Short Subject category.
Filmed over two years, it details the stark reality of two brothers’ dreams of being reunited with their mother, “Kitten,” who struggles with crack addiction.
Vaughn, who was adopted, learned of the brothers’ plight from Mets media relations Director Jay Horowitz.
“I’m amazed, I didn’t know his background,” said Danny Jacob, a freshman on the York basketball team. “It’s odd because Mo Vaughn is a superstar. For him to look out like that is amazing. I’m looking forward to meeting him.”
According to Danny Jacob, Vaughn also arranged for him and his brother, Raymond, a freshman on the Beach Channel junior varsity basketball team, to meet the first baseman when the season starts later this month.
“I’ve always been a Mets fan and I’m excited to go to Shea [Stadium],” said Jacob, who met former Mets centerfielder Mookie Wilson when he was in junior high school. “I’ve always been in the nosebleed seats, so I’m excited to get a chance to sit up close.”
Vaughn, who grew up in Norwalk, Conn., was a standout at Seton Hall University and was signed by the Boston Red Sox in 1989. He made his major league debut in 1991.
“I had a great life, great parents. But I was an adopted kid,” Vaughn told the TimesLedger. “These kids are foster kids at an older age. They don’t want to accept failure. They continue to go out and live life. To not be present at an event like that just wasn’t right. For what they been through and what they turned themselves into, they should have an opportunity to go.”
Vaughn added: “A plane ticket, what’s that? I felt it was the right thing to do.
“There are too many people out there that make excuses and never made anything for themselves,” he said. “They probably had a tougher life than most of us out there, and look what they’ve done. They should be honored for that, to get an opportunity to be the spotlight.”
— Arthur V. Claps contributed to this story
Reach Associate Sports Editor Dylan Butler by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 1-718-229-0300, Ext. 143.
