April 16, 2008
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They say baseball is America’s pastime, but for today’s inner-city youth, it’s more like an afterthought.
With the help of his former star pitcher, David Price, Vanderbilt baseball coach Tim Corbin hopes to change that one child at a time. The two have teamed up with Vanderbilt Athletics marketing department to allow Nashville RBI to bring up to 100 kids to all five Sunday games at Hawkins Field this season.
In addition to the tickets, the youngsters also receive a David Price T-shirt, vouchers for a hot dog and soda, and a chance to take the field with the Commodores during the national anthem and run the bases following the game.
“They get to see enough violence and enough hatred going on in their neighborhoods,” said Reggie Whittemore, who founded Nashville RBI in 1996 to give inner-city kids an opportunity to play, to grow and to dream. “We have an opportunity to bring kids out to see a college baseball game and be on a college campus, and they would never have an opportunity like this if this wasn’t available to them.”
Whittemore, who played at McGavock High and Lipscomb University before spending seven years in the Boston Red Sox minor-league system, has seen the organization grow exponentially since it received an $8,000 grant from Major League baseball 12 years ago. Nashville RBI began with 60 members. Today it includes some 1,300 boys and girls between the ages of five and 14, approximately 90 percent of whom are underprivileged, Whittemore said.
Corbin said the decision to create a partnership with Nashville RBI was a no-brainer.
“It didn’t really take too much thinking to get involved in something like that because it’s for the city and it’s for kids, to get them involved in baseball and to get them over here,” he said. “In this program, we’ve got some role models like a David Price or a Pedro Alvarez or an Alex Feinberg or Ryan Flaherty. They’ve got personalities that the kids can attach themselves to, and they’re good players, so I thought this was as good a time as any.”
Corbin attended Major League Baseball’s Winter Meetings in Nashville, where he learned that the sport’s biggest concern was the fact that it is becoming increasingly less popular among minorities, who often grow up in the inner-city. The Associated Press recently reported that just 8.2 percent of MLB players are black, the lowest number in at least two decades.
In order to get kids, particularly those who are underprivileged and find it much easier and cooler to pick up a basketball or football, excited about the game, Corbin said “it has to start at the grassroots level” with organizations like Nashville RBI.
“I don’t know if baseball a lot times is one of those interests of a 12, 13-year-old inner-city kid or anyone,” Corbin said. “When you open up an avenue where they can see it and experience it, they think, ‘Boy, I can do what that kid is doing,’ and ‘I could put on a uniform.'”
In an age where stars like Lebron James and Kobe Bryant dominate “Sports Center,” Corbin said it is important for baseball to find leaders within communities such as Nashville who are able to have an impact on other kids. He already knows one of them.
“David Price is that guy,” Corbin said. “Price needs to be involved because he came from a situation like that, albeit it was Murfreesboro, but still, he was given the opportunity to play and look what he’s done with it. I think there are a lot of David Prices out there.”
Price, the 2007 National Player of the Year, was taken No. 1 overall by the Tampa Bay Rays in last year’s MLB Draft.
“It is fun to see kids wanting to learn about baseball and RBI gives them that chance,” Price said. “I hope the kids are able to enjoy the Sundays at Hawkins Field and stay interested in the game.”
Whittemore is confident that they will.
“I know it’s a joy for them,” he said. “You can see the big smile on their face when they come out here.”
It’s also a joy for the players, who are realizing that all it takes one high-five or one conversation or one autograph to inspire a youngster to dedicate himself to the game of baseball.
“The one-on-one interaction with a Price or Alvarez or Flaherty or Jonny White,” Corbin said, “is going to lead that kid to maybe want to pick up a bat and ball and be successful at it.”
-Jarred Amato is a junior at Vanderbilt University and also writes for “The Sports VU” at sportsvu.blogspot.com. He can be reached at jarred.s.amato@vanderbilt.edu.
