Quaker Valley High School baseball team pays tribute to Owen 'the World' Galluzzo

The Quaker Valley High School baseball team did something recently that would have meant the world to a boy from Sewickley.

The boy was 9-years-old when he died. At that point, Owen “the World” Galluzzo’s joys in life were music, Star Wars and playing baseball with his buddies from school.

To honor that, the baseball team added Galluzzo to its roster as an honorary member, retired his number for four years and will memorialize him on the home field with a banner. He would have been a freshman in high school this year – so the roster will include him for the next four years.

“He lit up the room with his smile, his warmth and joy. He was a special kid, and we sorely miss him,” said Scott Haas, a friend of the family and a member of the board formed by the creation of the Owen Galluzzo Memorial Fund.

The community has been grieving with the family since Galluzzo died after planned heart surgery to maintain a heart condition. Every year on Labor Day, the family hosts a fundraiser in his honor at War Memorial Park, which according to his mother Meghan Galluzzo, was his favorite park. The fundraiser has grown over the years, attracting up to 600 people who participate in a Wiffle ball tournament, picnic and raffles.

The fund, established through the Pittsburgh Foundation, was created shortly after his death in 2014 to support organizations that enrich the lives of medically-fragile children like Owen.

Restrictions from covid-19 prevented the large gathering from happening this year, so instead, the family encouraged friends to be kind to others through the month of Septemeber.

The school’s fall baseball teams took that encouragement to heart when they, on Sept. 26, played doubleheaders in Galluzzo’s memory. Galluzzo’s jersey, number 4, hung behind home plate and friends shared words about him.

“He was a special member of our Quaker Valley community, who loved Star Wars, music, his family and friends, and playing baseball with his friends and school mates,” read the tribute given by Haas and his boys, Declan and Bennett, before the games.

Haas said he and others on the memorial fund board pitched the idea to the baseball coach about putting Galluzzo on the roster this year. But instead of just one year, the coach decided to extend it to four years, the amount of time he would have spent on the team through high school.

Meghan Galluzzo said the gestures this year have been amazing.

“It was just very touching to know that he’s still very present in people’s lives,” she said. “We worry that as time passes that people will forget. This was a way that that doesn’t happen. He’s still very relevant in people’s lives.”

She hopes the baseball team’s gesture means he has an impact on people who never met him.

“And that is going to help us continue to grieve in the healthiest way we know how,” she said.