Amid the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, many players and teams around the baseball and greater L.A. sports world worked together to provide relief to those affected. Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani, Chris Taylor and the Dodgers’ ownership are just a few leaders in the Southern California sports community who have made incredible contributions.

Per the Orange County Register’s Bill Plunkett, catcher Will Smith and former Dodgers ace Walker Buehler are making a large donation to those affected by the wildfires with a piece of baseball history from the World Series.

Buehler famously came in to close out Game 5 of the Fall Classic and threw the final pitch of the 2024 season while also collecting the first save of his career. Smith, who caught the storied pitch, worked with his wife Cara and Buehler to find a way to bring even more meaning to this ball after the wildfires ravaged the city he helped bring a championship to months before.

“Just talking with Walker, my wife, trying to figure out what the best thing to do was,” Smith said. “Then the fires happened, and it was kind of a no-brainer. That was what we wanted to do, should do. I’m just grateful for it going for quite a bit of money.”

The final number after the auction on behalf of Smith and Buehler’s charities was $414,000. This will be donated to relief efforts across Los Angeles.

As this ball will help so many people in a community that has experienced such devastating loss over the last few months, it is undeniably a major part of baseball history forever. Smith spoke on how impressed he was with the amount of money the baseball went for at auction.

“Yeah, I am [impressed],” he said. “We had appraisals that were all over the map. It’s really hard to tell.”

Smith and the Dodgers are off to another hot start in 2025 as fans hope the backstop will catch another baseball for the final out of the World Series this October.

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