By Steve Habel/Senior Editor
AUSTIN – Former Texas baseball players Roger Clemens and Huston Street and Olympic softball champion Cat Osterman were featured speakers and a huge part of the success at RBI Austin’s Fifth Annual Benefit Banquet, held Thursday night for a capacity crowd at Brazos Hall in downtown Austin.
Other notable Texas players at banquet and [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]silent auction at Austin’s Brazos Hall were current Major League Baseball players Brandon Belt (Giants), James Russell (Cubs), Drew Stubbs (Rockies), Taylor Jungmann (Brewers) and Corey Knebel (Brewers) and former MLBers and lifetime Longhorns Keith Moreland, Greg Swindell, Curtis Thigpen and Justin Simmons.
Major League Baseball established Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) in 1989 as a youth outreach program designed to increase participation and interest in baseball and softball among the underserved.
The program also aims to promote greater inclusion of minorities into the mainstream of the game, sticking a figurative finger in the proverbial dyke to help stop the flow of athletes out of baseball.
In the 26 years since RBI chapters have been started in more than 200 cities worldwide while annually providing more than 260,000 boys and girls the opportunity to play baseball and softball.
RBI Austin was established in 2009 and had just 22 players in the program in its first summer leagues in 2010. Last year, RBI Austin had 561 participants, 97 percent of which are listed as economically disadvantaged and as minorities and 72 percent of which are considered at-risk.
Clemens told stories about some of the experiences he encountered in his 24 years as a major league player. He won 354 games while pitching for four teams, two World Series championships (with the Yankees in 1999 and 2000), seven Cy Young Awards and was the American League most valuable player in 1986 (when he led the Red Sox into the World Series).
Many of RBI’s beneficiaries come from underserved and single-family homes.
“I am excited about what RBI Austin does for single-parent and underprivileged children who love the game, and I enjoy being associated with that cause,” Clemens said. “It complements the efforts of the Roger Clemens Foundation as it assists children’s charities.”
Through the years, MLB’s 30 teams have drafted more than 200 RBI participants in its first-year player draft, including 13 players selected overall in 2014.
RBI alumni on Major League rosters during the 2014 season included Carl Crawford (Dodgers), Coco Crisp (Athletics), James Loney (Rays), Manny Machado (Orioles), CC Sabathia (Yankees), Yovani Gallardo (Rangers) and Justin Upton (Padres).
Currently, the Junior RBI playing divisions for baseball and softball players ages 5-12 has in excess of 160,000 younger boys and girls in the program.
Because school attendance and performance is a requirement for joining and remaining on many RBI teams, its leagues motivate participants to stay in school and pursue a post-secondary education.
RBI has been embraced in so many communities because it teaches kids that being a success in life takes more than succeeding on the ball field – it also means succeeding in the classroom and in the community.
“So many of these kids just don’t have much else to look forward to, so it’s always a thrill and exciting for me to see how they respond to RBI,” Osterman said. “There’s not a second that I’m on the field with these kids that I doubt how important it is to them and how significant this program is.”
It has been 68 years since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball and 40 summers have passed since Hank Aaron blasted his 715th home run to break the career record long held by Babe Ruth. According to the league, only 8.3 percent of players on 2014 opening day rosters identified themselves as African-American or black.
There was progress in the 1960s and ’70s at making the game more diverse. Twenty-six percent of players on rosters in 1979, five years after Aaron’s record-breaking homer, were black. Today’s figures are as low as they’ve been since baseball became fully integrated in 1959.
In the second decade of the 21st century, 25-man rosters of the 30 major league teams are diverse in other ways. Players of Latin descent made up about 30 percent of the 853 players (750 active 25-man roster players and 103 disabled or restricted Major League players) on MLB rosters at the start of the 2014 season.
Baseball beyond the Little League level can be an expensive pursuit due to the high costs of select and travel teams and upper-tier instruction. Through the RBI program, MLB has put in place a funding mechanism that allows low-income kids to get instruction that they couldn’t afford.
If a player gets to be 13 years old and has a love of the game, instructors are provided at little or no cost to refine his or her skills.
Typical RBI leagues operate from May to August and provide five divisions of local league play for older participants. Tournament play usually begins in late July with regional qualifying tournaments for advancement to the RBI World Series in early August.
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