The Rocky Mountain Vibes is a minor league baseball team in Colorado that had recently planned a family night sponsored by Save the Storks and Pikes Peak Citizens for Life. For six months they spent thousands of dollars and valuable time promoting the game.
"We did pay $10,000 for the sponsorship of the game," reports Julie Bailey, head of the Pikes Peak organization. "Save the Storks actually paid to bring Matt Hammitt, who is the former lead singer for a Christian band called Sanctus Real, which is well known among evangelical praise and worship groups."
Diane Ferraro of Save the Storks says Hammitt's son, Bowen, was also excited to be a part of the concert that was to take place after the game. But last Friday, the morning of the event, Bailey and Ferraro got a call that it had been canceled.
"The reasons have changed over the last 72 hours," Ferraro tells AFN. "Right now, their official statement that they have shared with some of the major news outlets is that they were not comfortable with our assets, and they didn't feel that we were providing an affordable family night."
Tickets, however, were only $10, the concert was free, and both pro-life groups had agreed to not display graphic photos of aborted babies or anything that could be considered offensive to those in attendance.
"The only thing they would really tell us at the time was that some of their larger season-long sponsors threatened to pull their sponsorship if they went ahead with the night and that some groups that had purchased large blocks of tickets were also threatening not to support the team any longer," Bailey relays.
"The worst part was Matt Hammit was at the airport with his little boy, 12-year-old Bowen, who has survived quite a bit in his life," Ferraro details. "He's had three open heart surgeries, and he started crying when his dad said that they disinvited them to sing. We were just heartbroken for everyone involved, especially for Bowen Hammitt."
The event was canceled despite the fact that the pro-life groups had managed to draw quite a crowd ahead of time.
"What we had heard from the Vibes was that they sold in advance of this game about 6,000 tickets, which is around three times more than they ever advanced sell for these games," Bailey tells AFN.
Even so, the pro-life fans of the minor league baseball team fell victim to cancel culture.
"If they think they can cancel this event and cancel Save the Storks, they've got another thing coming, because people are outraged," Ferraro concludes.
