Yesterday was the Grand Opening of the Houston Urban Youth Academy in the Acres Home community.  The Youth Academy is modeled on one opened in Compton, CA four years ago, and provides free baseball and softball training as well as academic support to any student who wants it in the region.  Though the original academy came from the Reviving Baseball in Inner-cities (RBI) program to help provide inner city youth with the opportunity to play and interact with the game of baseball, in hopes of bring more African American’s back to the game, these academies are open to anyone and provide training in many related skills as well.

Students can learn about umpiring, groundskeeping, journalism and broadcasting.  Some kids are also getting drafted to play baseball as well, so the dream of finding those young African- American stars is being helped along, but also others, of African-American, Hispanic and even Caucasian kids are finding skills that they will graduate with that might keep them around the game of baseball.  The Academies goal is to help graduate 100% of kids that enter the doors from high school, and it seems the Compton Academy has done a pretty good job with this.

The next academy is scheduled to open in Hialeah, FL near Miami.

MLB and the Astros put up $600,000 dollars which was matched by a former Mayor Bill White.  A local Congressman, Rep. Sylvester Turner, was able to find and acquire the land for the project, and for that, got the field named after him.

The model seems to work.  Kids are graduating.  Their are more kids from the inner city getting found by major league scouts.  Not sure how many are getting found that really have a chance to make the major leagues, but perhaps these are attracting kids that might not have had any skills, encouragement or discipline without them.

The only question about the academies in my mind is why, after proving that the model works, are their only two, with a plan for  third?  Why isn’t there one in Chicago, New York, and Washington DC?  The money isn’t pre-clusive- especially when you think about the millions and millions of dollars made from MLB.com and MLB TV.   There are 30 owners who should be able to help support an Academy as Drayton McLane did in Houston or as Charlie Monfort, owner of the Colorado Rockies, did for the Compton Academy.

All sport hold a power in the minds of the youth- taking advantage of that to provide opportunities to kids that really needs it should be a very high priority with leagues.  MLB is creating loyalty within the community, and with kids by granting these opportunities.  Because its moving so slowly though, it seems more like a scheme to have something positive to point to, to get some good press, than an actual initiative with real support. Its not really a sham.  But until every major urban city has one, it just looks like that.