WASHINGTON, May 9 - Inner-city children who dream of playing Major League
baseball must often overcome street crime, broken families and poor playing
fields.
For three decades after the Senators left, youngsters in Washington also had
no hometown team to inspire them.
Last year's arrival of the Nationals is helping to revive baseball in the
U.S. capital, however. The team, the league and organisations such as the Cal
Ripken Foundation are seeding the city's playing fields with cash and equipment
in the belief that a bumper crop of ballplayers and lifelong fans will sprout.
Youth participation is jumping. Parents are paying fees as high as $100 for
their children to participate. At practice fields, every child and coach, it
seems, is wearing a red or blue Nationals cap.
"Last year, we saw the greatest influx of children into baseball. The reason:
the Washington Nationals," said Mike Williams, athletic director with the Boys
& Girls Clubs of Greater Washington. "Rosters swelled. Kids with brand-new
gloves who never played were practising, going to winter clinics."
Some 400 children were on teams, double the number of two years ago, he said.
Across the United States and Canada, fewer black people are playing baseball
at all league levels as young urban athletes choose basketball or American
football instead. Major League scouts noticed that trend in the 1980s and by
1991 had developed the RBI programme -- Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities.
Major League Baseball (MLB) now manages the RBI programme with the Boys &
Girls Clubs of America in more than 200 cities, and, with the clubs, has pumped
more than $16 million in resources into the programme. Some 100 RBI graduates
had been drafted by Major League clubs, the league said.
PERSONAL GOALS
For children who do not have big-league talent, playing baseball teaches them
the value of discipline, effort and team play, and makes them long-term fans of
the game, coaches say.
