Baseball Charity Wine

One of the social roles of charity is to provide a means for people to transcend tribal allegiances, and there are few tribal allegiances so intractable as those between Boston and New York baseball fans. My current gig is one example of how charity serves this role--after all, the Grant & Helene Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship is funded by an entrepreneurial couple just a few T-stops away from Fenway itself!

In the news today, another unifying effort: Charity Wine's baseball line, the proceeds of which go to the charities associated with players who appear on the bottle. Wine has long been a source of income for monastic religious organizations, so it's only appropriate that the Church of Baseball has joined the mix.

Boston entrepreneur John Corcoran co-founded the program last year as a new way for athletes to give back to their communities. He began by recruiting three Red Sox players -- Manny Ramirez, Curt Schilling and Tim Wakefield -- to debut their wines, and by the time the year was through, he had helped raise approximately $400,000 for charity.

This season, athletes began calling Corcoran asking to get involved, and the company has signed on with stars such as Ken Griffey Jr., David Ortiz and Chipper Jones. Corcoran said Charity Wines expected to raise over $1 million this season with relative ease.

"I'm really excited to have my face on the bottle," Schneider said, "and to help a good cause."

Even if that means mingling with a couple of Yankees on the day of the Subway Series opener, which ended up being rained out. And so Schneider sat on a stage at Mickey Mantle's on Friday, joking with Abreu and Posada only hours before his Mets were scheduled to take on their Yankees.

Some quarrels, it seems, can certainly be set aside.

"When it comes to charity," Corcoran said, "you can't really pick sides."