Maggie was the inspiration for her husband, Tim Corbin – Vanderbilt Commodores Baseball head coach – to create Topps style baseball trading cards recognizing the people fighting on the front lines to curb the COVID-19 virus. Maggie is constantly working behind the scenes and she deserves to be recognized for her hard work and charismatic personality. Thanks to Maggie’s brilliant idea, Tim created an online card to recognize our healthcare heroes that are putting their lives on the line to fight COVID-19 and protect our community. When we asked Maggie how she came up with this concept, she said, “The idea for the hero starting lineup came to me early one morning while still in bed. The night before, a good friend of ours, a doctor at Vanderbilt, had sent an email asking Tim and I for help in lifting the spirits of the health care workers. His exact words were, ‘send inspiration to those health care workers on the front lines and keep it coming, be relentless.’ I must have been thinking about it in my sleep because when I woke up, I immediately told Tim about it.”
Drawing inspiration from classic baseball cards, Tim Corbin tweets a photo daily and uses the hashtag #herostartinglineup. “Maggie and I woke up this week and we had an idea. We’ve been trying to think of things to do to honor individuals on Twitter,” Corbin told WKRN. “When I saw the Topps card, I thought if we could merge those two, it would be a nice way of involving them in a baseball kind of way.”
Maggie describes the intent behind the project: “The thought was that when we were young, a baseball player’s card not only highlighted that player – made that player feel special, but it also gave the fans a little insight into that player’s life. So what if we made a baseball card of a healthcare worker every day? Once the idea was formed, Tim immediately went to work designing the card and putting his ‘baseball mind’ spin on it with baseball trivia and the wording following that of a PA announcer. We have received hundreds of ‘heroes’ and we feel honored to make a card for these amazing people every day.” She adds, “The effect we hope this project has is twofold. The first is to make that healthcare worker feel special – to show them how important they are to all of us. Secondly, it gives the community a glimpse into this person’s life – it allows us to get to know these heroes who are saving our lives.”
Thank you, Maggie, for always putting others before yourself and lifting them up even in the hardest times. Your endless compassion and love for the Nashville community is an inspiration. We appreciate you for making the effort to help in this uncertain time. You knocked it out of the park!
