ATLANTA -- In the 1998 baseball cult classic movie Bull Durham, "Crash" Davis offers the following insight to young "Nuke" LaLoosh: "In baseball, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."
Those words would prove prophetic on Saturday morning, as rain washed out the majority of Opening Day at the Atlanta Braves Baseball Academy. But while rain dampened the proceedings, it could not put a dent in the enthusiasm of the 100-plus youth that took part in a clinic, which featured instruction by current Braves pitchers Jeff Bennett and Royce Ring, and utility infielder Ruben Gotay.
The Braves players served as instructors to kids from the Junior Braves/RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) Youth Baseball League, teaching the proper throwing mechanics, hitting techniques, and base running skills.
"You get to come out and get to share your experiences with the kids, teach them a little bit and just hang out," said Bennett, who worked the pitching station down the right-field line.
"I never had any professional athletes come out. I lived in a small town, so we didn't have stuff like that," added the Donelson, Tenn., native. "So this is great to be able to share with the kids like that. It's a big experience for them and it's fun for us, too."
"I've never seen this complex and this is a great complex to help out the community and to bring in baseball to this area," added Ring, who grew up in the San Diego area and attended clinics sponsored by Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. "To be a part of it, to come out and help the kids out and teach them a little something about baseball, what I can teach them from what I've learned, it's a great experience. I've actually got the throwing and catching baseball station. So we'll go out there and try to be creative."
Gotay shook off the frustration of arriving late because of traffic on the downtown connector, and was all smiles as he provided instruction at the hitting station down the left-field line.
"This is fun," Gotay said. "I like to spend a little bit of time with the kids. They're our future. So it's always good to talk with them a little bit. When they see you, they get so happy to see Major League guys. So I love to spend time with them."
Unfortunately, on this day, rain came, forcing everyone off the field, but that didn't stop the fun. Instead, Braves Community Affairs Coordinator Steve Timmreck, who emceed the event, gathered the participants under the cover of the bleachers on the first- and third base lines and ran an impromptu question and answer session.
There will be brighter days ahead for Junior Braves and the youth at the Academy located next to the Villages of Carver YMCA. Beginning its fourth season, the Junior Braves/RBI Youth Baseball League, sponsored by Delta Air Lines, has expanded to include more than 20 teams, and will allow more than 2,000 kids, ages 5 to 18 from under-served neighborhoods, to play baseball. That's more than double the number of participants from last year.
"This year we've expanded our Junior Braves Baseball League to include the YMCA," explained Ericka Newsome, the Braves Director of Community Affairs and Braves Foundation. "Last year we had about 900. The Junior Braves League is like the umbrella. So now we have Boys and Girls Club and YMCA under Junior Braves.
"We hoped that it would grow and we still look forward to the league growing even more," she added. "It's been fun working with the YMCA, just to encourage kids in the inner city to come play baseball and it's working. They love the fields, the area is great, the YMCA is first class, the fields are first class. They keep them up really well. So it's what we'd imagined but we're always looking to increase our enrollment."
To that end, the facility will be opening its doors to the 10th Annual Smoltz-Grissom Wood Bat Classic, which will be taking place in late May.
The Atlanta Braves Baseball Academy includes four baseball fields, funded by Braves players Chipper Jones, Brian Jordan, Mike Hampton, and John Smoltz, each of whom contributed $75,000 to the Metro Atlanta YMCA, bringing an eight-acre signature youth sports complex to the heart of the redeveloped Carver community near Turner Field.
The Atlanta Braves Foundation contributed $500,000, and the Baseball Tomorrow Fund, a collaborative initiative between Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association, gave $144,000 to support the academy.
"This used to be just dirt and trees. Now look at it," said Newsome. "We really want to make this place the premier youth baseball facility in metro Atlanta. So this year we'll be planning a lot of programs that will expose the Braves Baseball Academy, to not only the kids in this area, but to leagues and teams outside of this area as well."
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