‘Little Renaissance man’ passes away; community remembers baseball player, 12

The doctors and nurses who attended to 12-year-old Tommy Fitzgerald during his final days in a hospital described the boy in a way his father had never considered.

“I never heard it put this way before, but they’d say he was a ‘little Renaissance man,’” said Ken Fitzgerald, a former Maricopa resident who still owns a house in the city. “It’s kinda true when I start to think about it. He actually was.” 

Tommy, who attended Pima Butte Elementary School before moving to Gilbert with his family in December, had a number of talents and interests that included running, playing the guitar and a dream of becoming a pilot, like his father. One of his most noticeable talents was on the baseball field where Tommy excelled in hitting and showed off quick hand-eye coordination, Fitzgerald said. 

The 12-year-old died Monday from a staph infection that entered his body through a knee wound he received while playing the sport he loved.

A moment of silence was held for Tommy at Tuesday’s city council meeting and the Maricopa Little League, for which the boy used to play, intends to attach his name to a sportsmanship award given each year to a player who shows a positive attitude and joy for the game. 

“He really exemplifies what that award was about,” said Kevin McDill, vice president of the league. 

McDill, a coach for about four years, said he didn’t know Tommy well, but when he saw him on the field, he could tell the boy had a passion for the sport. 

“He was just a great kid,” he said. “The kid was always smiling. If he was on a baseball field, he was always happy, because that’s what he loved to do and he was really good at it.” 

Tommy played for all-star teams in both Maricopa and Gilbert. After his family’s move, he finished sixth grade at Haley Elementary School in Chandler. 

Fitzgerald said his son was quite an athlete. He recalled a track meet where as a fifth grader at Pima Butte, Tommy ran an impressive sub-6 mile. He was also a musician who could play the guitar and piano as well as sing.

A YouTube video posted in March 2010 shows a determined Tommy belting out the national anthem during the opening day of little league in Maricopa. 

Mayor Christian Price mentioned the video during Tuesday’s council meeting. Price said he did not know the family, but the request to mention Tommy’s death was passed to him from the Fitzgerald’s through Councilwoman Julia Gusse. 

“I just can’t imagine losing a child,” said Price, who has three children of his own. 

Gusse said she knew the family. 

“It just came as a shock to all of us,”  she said. 

She called Tommy a “talented” and “special kid,” and said there’s already a proposal to name one of the community’s baseball fields after the boy. 

When it came to dreams, Tommy was always bringing up three future professions, his father said. 

Ken Fitzgerald is a pilot for a major airline and said Tommy wanted to go into the same field. 

“He was very enthusiastic about airplanes,” he said. “He was always flying his flight simulator in his spare time and asking about all the airports throughout the country.” '

Tommy also wanted to be a baseball player and a doctor. 

“He said in the hospital, ‘I think it would be fun to be a doctor because it would be like, it would be like a puzzle and you’d have to solve it and that would be interesting,’” he said.