There are few things as exciting as throwing out the first pitch at a Phillies game. But at the top of the list is knowing you’ve got a second chance at life.
That’s a real possibility thanks to the generous gifts of organ, tissue, and eye donors. It’s also what we celebrate during April, which is National Donate Life Month.
Temple patients, clinicians, and staff came together to cheer on three Temple Health transplant recipients who had the honor of throwing or catching the first pitch before recent home games at Citizens Bank Park. You can read their stories below, check out photos from the games, and watch as they celebrate iconic moments—alongside the clinical teams who helped them have another shot at the plate.
Transplant Dream Team and an Altruistic Pair
April 11th (Phillies 5, Pirates 1)
On April 11th, two Temple transplant patients caught first pitches: Julian Harmon and Joe DeMayo.
Julian is a Temple Health employee who received a kidney transplant in 2023 in the very same operating room where he works (and whose extraordinary story we’ve featured)! He had never mentioned his condition to his colleagues before the transplant, but knowing that they were the ones performing the procedure meant there was an “extra level of trust.”
Julian caught the first pitch, thrown by his surgeon, Kenneth Chavin, MD, PhD, FACS, Director of Temple University Hospital’s Abdominal Organ Transplant Program and Professor of Surgery and Vice Chair of Research at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine.
Joe also received a kidney transplant at Temple after an illness and subsequent dehydration left him living with an acute kidney injury. He caught the first pitch thrown by his donor, MaryBeth Foster, who donated her kidney anonymously—and who met Joe for the first time at the Phillies game!
MaryBeth’s decision to be a donor was motivated by her diagnosis of Nutcracker Syndrome: a serious condition in which the left renal vein is compressed, interfering with blood flow. As a way to treat her condition while also helping someone in need, Marybeth became an altruistic donor. She and Joe make an incredible team: they're both recovering well, and had a successful first pitch!
A Second Chance with a One-of-a-Kind Surgery
April 19th (Phillies 7, White Sox 0)
The first pitch at the April 19th game was thrown by Temple patient Steve Tirney, who was diagnosed with interstitial lung disease in July of 2020. Interstitial lung disease causes scarring of the lungs, and by 2022, Steve was told he would need to have a lung transplant.
While his doctors were performing tests to get him on the transplant list, they discovered that he also needed a triple bypass in his heart. That was big news, since a bypass can be a barrier to transplant.
To ensure the best outcome, Steve’s medical team suggested that he undergo his lung transplant at the same time as his heart surgery. Because of the complexity of the operation, they recommended he see a surgeon who had experience with this procedure.
Fortunately, Temple University Hospital’s Yoshiya Todoya, MD, PhD, Professor and William Maul Measey Chair of Surgery at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine; Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery, Surgical Director of Thoracic Transplantation, and Director of Mechanical Circulatory Support at Temple University Hospital; and Co-Surgical Director of the Temple Heart & Vascular Institute, agreed to take Steve’s case.
Steve received a lung transplant and coronary artery bypass on March 29, 2022, and has since made a full recovery thanks to Dr. Todoya and the Temple Health team. And the results have clearly paid off—he threw out an impressive first pitch!
Continuing Our Legacy as Transplant All-Stars
Since performing Philadelphia’s first heart transplant in 1984, Temple has continued to lead the way in transplant care. We now offer world-renowned heart, lung, kidney, liver, pancreas and bone marrow transplant services. We’re a national leader in lung transplant outcomes, and were the highest volume lung transplant program in the country from January 2015-August 2023. Temple physicians have also expanded the criteria for heart transplants, performing successful procedures on patients who had previously been told that a transplant would be impossible.
Across all of our services, our Temple physicians, surgeons, and transplant teams are driven by the same commitment to providing the highest-quality care to everyone who walks through our doors—or as one might say at Citizens Bank Park, to hitting a home run.