Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities
Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) is a youth baseball program with the mission of increasing youth interest and participation in baseball and softball in inner cities. The program was created by John Young in 1989 in Los Angeles, California, and now serves more than 200 communities.
Background
The number of African American players in Major League Baseball has declined in recent years. No member of the 2005 Houston Astros, who played in the 2005 World Series, was African American.[1] The percentage of African American players on Opening Day rosters has dropped from 19% in 1995 to 8.5% in 2013, leading to MLB opening a task force.[2][3]
Working as a scout for the Baltimore Orioles, John Young noticed a lack of African American prospects taken in the 1986 Major League Baseball Draft. He presented his findings to Orioles' general manager Roland Hemond and MLB Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, who agreed to fund a youth baseball program in Los Angeles, providing $50,000. Young organized 12 teams of 180 13- and 14-year-olds for the first year of the RBI program[4] Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis, baseball players from Southern California, devoted time and money to help the program.[5]
Alumni of the RBI program include CC Sabathia, Coco Crisp, James Loney, Carl Crawford, B. J. Upton, Justin Upton, Julio Borbon, Efren Navarro, Trevor Reckling.[5][6]
References
- ^ http://www.denverpost.com/kiszla/ci_10817294
- ^ http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130409&content_id=44360688&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb
- ^ http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130522/SPORTS/130529953/1013
- ^ http://articles.latimes.com/1990-05-22/sports/sp-208_1_baseball-program
- ^ a b http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080224&content_id=2387908&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
- ^ http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070611&content_id=2019555&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb