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“I’m excited to get another chance to revive a baseball program,” Coach Marcus Smith said over lunch at the iconic Beautiful Restaurant in southwest Atlanta.
Fourteen months ago, Smith walked away from the Head Baseball Coach position at Le Moyne-Owen in Memphis, Tennessee over an NCAA compliance issue that occurred two years before he became head coach at the school.
“This tournament doesn’t have to have a PA announcer. It would be a success without me. What I bring to this tournament is an authentic baseball experience for these young men,” added Denmon in a tone so deep, so rich, that the hearer can only imagine those words originated from somewhere around his navel and moved upwards bursting out of his mouth, and punctuating the airwaves with a resonance indescribable.
“Helping people is what we are all about,” Greg “Goody” Goodwin said after he had arranged a try-out for Kendall Ford in between games at the 2019 MVP (Mentoring Viable Prospects) Classic. Ford is a graduate of the MVP program. He recently graduated from Columbus State University, where he played the middle infield positions.
The 15th annual MVP (Mentoring Viable Prospects) Baseball Classic got underway with a bang in Dekalb County, Georgia on Thursday, July 11, 2019, at the Georgia State University Baseball Complex.
MVP has become a gateway to collegiate baseball scholarships and professional baseball contracts for Black athletes throughout the country.
The Annual MVP (Mentoring Viable Prospects) program has announced first-round pairings for what has become a gateway to college baseball scholarships for African American athletes.
For nearly 20 years MVP has invited elite teams to visit the Georgia State University Baseball Complex in July to compete in three days of baseball, with workshops on how to prepare for the collegiate and professional recruitment process, and an awards banquet after crowning a champion on the field.
Tuskegee snaps Lane's ten game win streak
What better way to learn how to serve others than to walk in the footsteps of those who have done it?
In January, a group of 13–15-year-old baseball players from Atlanta set out on a humanitarian mission to hurricane ravished Puerto Rico. They learned what it was like to barnstorm across Puerto Rico like Satchel Paige and other Negro League players who would travel to the Caribbean to play baseball during the offseason on the mainland. And they learned what it means to give back to others in the spirit of Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
They have been playing baseball since 1888 at Clark-Atlanta University. In fact, the first matchup between two Black college teams pitted Clark College against Atlanta University. The two schools consolidated 100 years later to become Clark-Atlanta University. Perhaps, few games have been as exciting as the Kentucky State University match against Clark-Atlanta University on February 16, 2019.
ATL METRO RBI is poised to give new meaning to the term travel ball, as much of youth league baseball today is played on travel baseball teams. At least the elite players are on teams that travel a few miles, and in some cases several thousand miles, to compete against other elite baseball players. Travel ball is all about baseball and acquiring elite baseball skills to advance to collegiate and professional play.
I’m sure had I met Cyn Marsh before I was introduced to baseball, she would have been my first love.
But I didn’t. And although she is my ride or die today, she wasn’t my first love. I would not meet the future Mrs. Harvey until 22 years later.
My uncles Paul and John introduced me to the game of baseball one Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1956. The adults took the kids outside to work off a delicious after-church meal of fried free-range chicken, mashed potatoes, butter beans, corn bread, and fresh blackberry cobbler. We used an old broomstick for a bat and a red rubber ball. It was about the size of a baseball.