Ballplayers' sister steps up to the plate to combat domestic violence

Published: 2005-05-24

HUNTINGTON, N.Y. (CNS) -- When Sister Marguerite Torre was leaving her Brooklyn home to join the Ursuline Sisters in 1951, she gave her younger brother, Joe, a baseball glove. "I could have given you a rosary," Sister Marguerite told him, "but I gave you a glove. Every time you catch a ball, I want you to say a prayer." However, as she left her brother with encouraging words, Sister Marguerite recalled, she did not fully realize the violence that her family, particularly her mother, was suffering at the hands of their father. But Joe was aware, and that reality haunted his childhood, Sister Marguerite said at a luncheon in Huntington in early May sponsored by the Communities of Faith Task Force on Domestic Violence. "He told me that when he saw our father's car there, he wouldn't go home," she said. "No one should have to live in fear," Sister Marguerite told about 125 people at what organizers called a "Celebrating Survivors Luncheon." Joe Torre, a professional ballplayer and now manager of the New York Yankees, started the Joe Torre Safe At Home Foundation to combat domestic violence.

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