Local Stars will Compete in RBI Event

By: Keith Mills

The temperature was hitting 90 degrees when Kyle Brooks and his teammates straddled the right field foul line at Sixth Street Park in Brooklyn to run a series of wind sprints. Brooks and the Baltimore Under-18 RBI baseball team had just finished playing a 2 1/2-hour game against the Under-16 Maryland Orioles amateur team, and coach Derrick Burnett Sr. sent his team out for some extra conditioning.

"Why do this?" Brooks said. "I love the game of baseball."

Brooks is a graduate of Baltimore's City College and one of 14 players on a team that left Thursday for the RBI Regional Tournament in Trenton, N.J. RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) is celebrating its 20th birthday this summer, and the Baltimore team members are hoping to prove what many other amateur teams in town have done for many years -- they can play with anyone.

"It gives us a chance to play against other kids in other cities and see how good we actually are," Brooks said. "It's a great opportunity for us."

Brooks played football, basketball and baseball at City and now plays football and baseball at Seton Hill University, an NAIA school 15 miles east of Pittsburgh. The Griffins won the NAIA East Coast Super Regionals two years ago and qualified for the college World Series.

"A lot of people are wondering why I still play baseball," Brooks said. "I just tell them it's something I still do. I've always loved the game. Always loved playing."

The RBI program was started in 1989, when former major league scout John Young started a team in South Central Los Angeles. Only 11 players showed up for that team, but more than 120,000 boys and girls have played in its baseball and softball programs since then.

All 30 major league teams are involved with the program. Carl Crawford of the Tampa Bay Rays, Jimmy Rollins of the Philadelphia Phillies and Dontrelle Willis of the Detroit Tigers are all RBI alumni.

"It gives us a chance to come together and represent Baltimore," said Burnett, who has spent a dozen years coaching at the Liberty Road baseball program. "Our kids go to different schools and are from all parts of the city and different parts of the county. RBI gives them an incentive to keep working, keep playing."

Burnett played basketball at Woodlawn High School, graduating in 1977. He has spent a dozen years coaching in the Liberty Road program and now runs the U-18 RBI team with Orlando Stevenson and Rob Plummer, now in his 15th year as Woodlawn's baseball coach.

"RBI means there's still life in inner city baseball, especially in Baltimore," Plummer said. "Right now the spring season, which is usually baseball season, is under siege by [Amateur Athletic Union] basketball and spring football. If you go to a lot of the baseball diamonds in the city, instead of kids playing baseball you see football workouts."

Unlike many other RBI teams, which receive funding from Major League Baseball, Baltimore's RBI program is sponsored solely by the Orioles, who provide the equipment, uniforms, fields and the umpires' payment. Herring Run Park, Druid Hill Park, Hanlon Park and Carroll Park are among the venues for the city's RBI program, which features 18 teams and nearly 300 players. The Orioles are also picking up the tab for the Under-19 team's trip this weekend to Trenton.

The Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation also provides grants for the Baltimore RBI teams and allows four members of the 13-14 RBI program to attend one of the many Ripken Baseball camps in Aberdeen for free.

"The Orioles have been unbelievable," Plummer said. "There's nothing we need that we don't have."

"This is a great chance to wear the Orioles uniform and represent the city," said Derrick Burnett Jr., the coach's 6-foot-4 son. "Our goal is to show other areas in the country that Baltimore baseball is as good as anybody else."

Burnett Jr. recently completed a stellar three-sport career at Gilman, where he played quarterback for the football team, started on the basketball team and was one of the best baseball players in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference. He is headed to Elon University in North Carolina, where he wants to continue his baseball career.

"It's a chance for me to play [Division I] baseball," he said. "I can't wait to get the chance."

Burnett started on the mound for the Baltimore U-18 RBI team against the Maryland Orioles, one of the state's premier Under-16 teams, which features players from Archbishop Curley, Mount St. Joseph, John Carroll, Cardinal Gibbons, North County, Centennial and Towson Catholic. Burnett grew up playing for his father at Liberty Road, which has produced most of the players on the U-18 team, along with the Northwood Little League and the Panthers Amateur Program. Brooks, Corey Brown of Calvert Hall, Chris Collins of Western Tech, Evan Hill and Josh Thomas of St. Frances, Van Johnson and Martez Reed of Carver, Kyle Johnson of Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical, Ryan Norris of Randallstown, Marc Williams of Woodlawn, Robert Watkins of Baltimore Polytechnic, and Brandon Stevenson of Parkville are also on the team.

Most of the players are rising high school seniors. Thomas attends St. John's University in New York, and Stevenson is the starting center fielder for the Essex Community College baseball team, after completing an outstanding basketball and baseball career at Parkville.

"This is my last year with the RBI program," Stevenson said. "I really want to make a good impression."

"These kids do want to learn," said Orlando Stevenson, Brandon's father, who played baseball and football at Poly in the mid-70s. "As long as they give the effort you don't mind coming out and putting in the time, trying to make them get better."

"This is a great chance for us to play against some real good competition because at the RBI regional level we really see some very good baseball," said Burnett Sr., who put his all-star team together just last week. "You've got players who have been signed or are going to be signed and they can play. The competition we play here in our league isn't where it should be, but it's getting there."

Last year's Baltimore team finished 2-2 in the Regionals and eventually lost to a Philadelphia team that went on to win the RBI Under-18 World Series at the Urban Youth Academy in Compton, Calif.

Just last month, RBI produced its first first-round pick in baseball's amateur draft. Aaron Hicks, who went to Wilson Long High School in Long Beach, Calif., and is a product of the South Central League that John Young started 20 years ago, was taken with the 14th pick by the Minnesota Twins.

"When I first got to Baltimore, every rec program had their own baseball teams," said Plummer, who grew up in Asbury Park, N.J., and came to Baltimore 25 years ago.

"[Edmondson Recreation Council] was one of the biggest. They used to have two programs and one of the biggest tournaments. Now, they don't have it any more. But the guys that want to play baseball now, this is their passion. It's not football players or basketball players playing baseball. These are guys whose passion is baseball, and their hearts are in it."

Issue 3.28: July 10, 2008