Our Team
Jean Fruth
Co-founder, Grassroots Baseball®
“...sports isn’t merely a diversion. Its influence doesn’t end at the chalk line. Sports can empower and transform lives — the lives of youth, minorities, and women around the globe.”
Filmmaker and photographer Jean Fruth surrounds her work with purpose, using the power of images to tell stories and inspire change. She is the co-founder of the nonprofit organization, Grassroots Baseball. Jean’s film debut came in 2024 as Director and Producer of SEE HER BE HER. She is the author/photographer of three books in the Grassroots Baseball Series: Where Legends Begin (2019), Route 66 (2022), and See Her Be Her (2024). Jean is honored to be designated by Sony as one of its select Sony Artisans of Imagery.
Jeff Idelson
Co-founder, Grassroots Baseball®
“Grassroots baseball is where it all begins. It’s the excitement of getting your first glove. It’s the incredible sense of pride you feel from putting on your team’s cap and jersey. It’s meeting your teammates and the sense of being a part of something bigger. The Grassroots baseball experience provides a foundation for life on so many levels.”
Jeff Idelson has had a passion for baseball since he could walk. He went to his first game with his parents and grandparents as a five-year-old where he learned how to score games, and from that point forward, he was destined to find a career working in baseball. Jeff has spent his entire 38-year career in and around the game, with the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum, and Grassroots Baseball.
Along with acclaimed photographer Jean Fruth, Jeff co-founded Grassroots Baseball® in 2019 to give back to the sport they love. Their non-profit organization’s mission is to promote and celebrate the amateur game around the globe. Its overarching goal is to give back to historically underserved communities through the power of sports.
As Grassroots Baseball was beginning, Jeff was concluding his 26-year-tenure with the Baseball Hall of Fame, where he became the sixth person elected president in the museum’s 69-year history in 2008. He joined the venerable institution in 1994 as director of public relations and promotions, before being promoted to vice president of communications and education in 1999. As president, he presented plaques on the Induction stage to 53 baseball legends, and during his time in Cooperstown overall, Jeff was a part of 27 Induction ceremonies. He continues to assist the Museum today as a consultant.
The West Newton, Massachusetts native served as director of media relations and publicity for the Yankees from 1989-1993, traveling with the team on every road trip. He began his career in communications with the Red Sox in 1986, where he started as an intern five days after graduating from Connecticut College. Jeff continued with the team through the 1988 season, producing home radio broadcasts for the Red Sox Radio Network in 1987 and 1988, and writing features for the team’s game day program.
Today, in addition to his work with Grassroots Baseball, Jeff serves on the Girls’ Baseball Committee for Baseball For All, an organization building gender equity in baseball by providing girls with opportunities to play, coach, and lead.
Jeff cut his teeth as a center fielder in Newton Central Little League, retiring as a player at age 12, and later becoming a vendor at Fenway Park in high school and college.
Ken Griffey, Jr.
Hall of Famer
“As someone who knows how important a role model can be, I’m thrilled that Grassroots Baseball will be promoting girls and women involved in the sport I love. The girls’ game is growing around the globe, and women are already making an impact as executives, coaches, trainers and groundskeepers. As minds become more open and the gender gap narrows, women will continue to change the game for the better and for good. It meant so much to me to get to play alongside my dad. I hope that one day I get to see a young woman play alongside her mom in a major league game.”
Ken Griffey, Jr. was a five-tool center fielder who played the game with grace, style and charisma. He built a legion of fans around the globe with his innate ability, unbridled passion for the game. His signature smile personified the joy with which he played.
A power-hitting and fleet-footed ballplayer with a picture-perfect swing, Griffey hit .284 with 2,781 hits, including 630 home runs, 1,836 RBI and 1,662 runs scored. He hit 40 or more home runs in a season seven times, and his career total ranked fifth most in history when he retired behind Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays.
A 13-time All-Star who played air-tight defense, routinely scaling walls to rob opposing players of would-be home runs, Griffey earned 10 consecutive Gold Glove Awards. He was a seven-time Silver Slugger Award winner, and he was named 1997 American League Most Valuable Player after hitting .304 and leading the AL in HR (56), RBI (147), and slugging (.646).
After 22 magnificent major league seasons, including 13 with the Mariners (who drafted him first overall in 1987), nine with his hometown Reds, and one with the White Sox, Griffey was a first ballot electee to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2016, gaining the highest voting plurality in history, at the time.
The son of Ken Griffey, Sr., with whom he had the chance to play alongside in the outfield in the early part of his career, Junior has stayed close to the Mariners since his retirement, serving as a special consultant to the team, earning election to the Mariners Hall of Fame, and now, he is a part owner of the ballclub. Additionally, he serves as a senior advisor to Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.
Claire Smith
Award-winning Baseball Journalist
Claire Smith covered all things baseball as an award-winning reporter, columnist and content editor for 40 years before accepting a position as an associate professor at Temple University in 2021. She teaches journalism and was honored to be named co-director of the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media within the Klein College of Media and Communication.
Smith was born in Philadelphia in 1953 within blocks of Temple, her alma mater. She later worked within miles of her hometown at her first newspaper employer — the Bucks County Courier Times. She soon moved on to The Philadelphia Bulletin where her dream of becoming a sports reporter became a reality. Smith went on to work for the Hartford Courant, covering the New York Yankees from 1983 to 1987, the first female to have a full-time Major League beat. She later worked as a columnist for the New York Times from 1991 to 1998, and was an editor and columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1998 to 2007. She rounded out her career as a content editor at ESPN, 2007-2021.
Smith traveled the world covering baseball, with assignments as wide-ranging as labor negotiations in The Oval Office to witnessing the first-ever Major League games played in Europe and Puerto Rico. The veteran reporter’s achievements were recognized by her peers when she voted the 2017 recipient of The Baseball Writers Association’s Career Excellence Award; the first woman and fourth African American to be so honored. She has also been recognized for her pioneering efforts and career milestones by her alma mater as well as The Association for Women in Sports Media, The National Association of Black Journalists, The Jackie Robinson Foundation, The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and The Josh Gibson Foundation.
Smith was among the subjects of A League of Her Own, a short biographical documentary about the women who shattered glass ceilings throughout sport media. The film was screened in 2018 at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s annual Baseball Film Festival.
Steve Wulf
Editor, Grassroots Baseball
“When Bo, the oldest of our four children, was 3 years old, I took him to his first baseball game at Shea Stadium. As we got to our upper deck seats, he looked down at the players on the field, and said, ‘I am so exciting!’ I whisper that same slip of the tongue every time I go to a game.”
Steve Wulf has written about baseball in six different decades, mostly for Sports Illustrated, Time and ESPN.
He and his late wife, Bambi Bachman Wulf, met at SI and raised four pitchers, all of whom now work in the field of sports. He has seen the game played in every major league city, countless minor league parks and such countries as Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Korea, China, France, Australia and Uganda.
Like Lou Gehrig once did, Steve resides in Larchmont, NY, and like “The Iron Horse”, he considers himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
Tim Wiles
Baseball Historian
“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game — and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams.”
— Jacques Barzun , French historian, 1954
Tim Wiles’ first baseball games were watched and played in Peoria, Illinois. He grew up in a baseball-loving family, but he couldn’t hit the curveball.
Instead, he earned a master’s degree in library science, and in 1995 was hired as Director of Library Research at the Baseball Hall of Fame. His primary focus was to assist in research done by the museum, journalists, authors, filmmakers, students, and everyday fans. He has contributed to many books, articles, exhibits, research projects and films, and has written a couple of books of his own.
His research and advocacy at Cooperstown centered on documenting and celebrating the history of women and girls in the game, along with strong interests in baseball music, literature, popular culture (including baseball cards) and the arts.
Tim hit 1,004 wiffleball home runs in 1977 and his childhood collection of RC Cola cans featuring baseball players is on display at the Hall. Now the director of the Guilderland (NY) Public Library, Wiles lives in the Albany area with his family--all Cubs fans.
He is half the answer to the obscure trivia question: “Name two men who had Hall of Fame baseball careers which began in 1995 and ended in 2014.” The other guy was named Jeter.
Steve Fine
Photo Editor, Grassroots Baseball
“My father once told me that baseball was the only team sport that could be played by anyone; you don’t have to be very tall or very strong or very fast, as long as you could hit a round ball with a round bat, squarely (apologies to Ted Williams). I have played ball my entire life, from having a catch with my dad in the backyard to recently completing over 30 years on the softball fields of Central Park. It is more than grassroots, it is life.”
Steve Fine is currently a digital news editor/curator for the News Tab at Facebook. Before that, he was picture and sports editor at Flipboard, a news-aggregating app with more than 125 million monthly readers in 22 countries.
Prior to joining the Silicon Valley startup in 2013, Steve was the Director of Photography at Sports Illustrated for 17 years, leading a 25-member team of staff photographers and editors. Earlier, he was deputy picture editor at The New York Times Sunday Magazine and sports picture editor at the paper. He began his career at Sports Illustrated in 1979, learning from the masters.
He lives and breathes in Manhattan and the Yankees are his passion.