Ryan Howard's Achilles injury kept him off of the National League All-Star team for the 2012 Midsummer Classic but it didn't keep the Big Piece from enjoying all of the festivities in Kansas City over the break.
The Big Piece was awfully busy on Monday.
Early in the afternoon, Howard and State Farm Insurance hosted the Go to Bat Derby for kids from the Kansas City Boys and Girls Clubs, during which he hit with the kids and also made some media rounds and talked to CSN about the Phillies recent struggles (video to the right).
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He took in the 2012 Home Run Derby from the stands in left field at Kauffman Stadium later in the evening before getting the real party started postgame. [photos below]
SBNation's Amy K. Nelson (serious journalist) pointed out that Howard was walking around the left field concourse of the Kansas City ball park prior to the derby, stopping to talk to a number of fans and shake their hands.
We did a quick Twitter search and sure enough there were plenty of fan photos of Howard with his fiancee Krystle Cambell as well as suspended Phillies second baseman Freddy Galvis. Just kidding! That's actually Ryan's son, Darian.
To finish off his busy day, Howard hosted his big foundation party at the Negro League Museum.
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All in a days work when you're not on the field crushing homers. I'm sure we all would have preferred to see that.
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We collected some of the tweets from the evening.