TAMPA, Fla. — There’s not a day that goes by you won’t find Tony “Red” Morrison in his batting cages working with kids.

"I love watching them grow up, I love watching the smile on their faces when they hit the ball," Tony replied after finishing a recent lesson.

For the last 38 years, giving hitting lessons has been his passion, helping Bay area kids chase their dreams.

Like the players that Tony works with, he also had a dream. In 1991 after four seasons in the Yankees minor league organization, he got a chance to sign a contract with the big leagues in Mexico and was driving to the Tampa airport to catch his flight, when he was involved in a car accident that sent him to the emergency room.

Tony broke his back and after a nine-hour surgery was placed into a full body cast. Doctors told him he would never walk again, but Tony never gave up.

"I got up and I walked 70 feet and I looked at the doctor and I said, 'How do you like me now?'" Tony choked back tears as he remembered that moment.

From that day forward he has never looked back, and for four decades the 58-year-old has worked with ball players from the major leagues all the way down to the game's youngest levels. The faces of the kids he’s helped are constantly changing, but not his message.

"Get up, bounce back and keep moving, your coach did it," he said.

Tony has helped hundreds of area kids go on to college and the pros, each one to him is like a proud parent moment, knowing he has helped somebody chase the dream he had when he was their age.