Coaches also note that children who experience the mean streets of urban
America learn by participating in sports to overcome life's obstacles as they
strive towards personal goals -- be they better school grades or the glory and
riches they see their favourite players enjoy.
Boys and girls from ages four to 15 tried out earlier this year for baseball
and softball teams. The Boys & Girls Clubs organise teams that play in the
Babe Ruth and Cal Ripken leagues, and the city's Parks and Recreation Department
organises teams that play in the traditional Little League.
Gerald Hall, director of baseball operations for the Woodridge neighbourhood
youth organisation, said that in the mid-1990s Washington was "lucky to get
enough kids to field a Cal Ripken league." This year, he had more than enough
players, but he did not turn any away.
That meant more teams with expanded rosters, he said.
"When we got decent fields and nice uniforms, kids came back," he said. "You
can ask parents for $100 and they don't mind paying if they see what they're
getting."
Cameron Monk, a seventh-grader who plays catcher for the Woodridge Warriors,
attended a clinic where Nationals coaches taught him how to block a thrown ball.
The clinic helped his skills, he said.
DONATED EQUIPMENT
Development of young players bodes well for improved high school play later
on, coaches say.
The Cardoza High School team plays at Bannaker Field, a rough-cut baseball
diamond dominated by tufts of grass. On a recent sunny day, the team practiced
"cutoff" drills, with players in center field throwing batted balls to a team
mate at home plate. Balls took a very bad hop when they skipped off the infield
grass.
Frazier O'Leary, coach of the Cardoza Clerks, said what little city money
there was for baseball went on umpires and transportation, so the $500,000 in
baseball equipment donated by the Cal Ripken Foundation had given the city's
cash-poor school programme a big lift.
"The vast majority of my players except for two kids are just learning how to
play now, as juniors and seniors," said O'Leary. The two who knew how to play
learned before moving to Washington, he said.
