The Youth Baseball Academy will serve as a sanctuary for kids interested not only in how the game is played but how the game can be a positive and productive part of their lives. The Compton academy is part of Major League Baseball's Urban Youth Initiative, which is an ambitious and important project that is designed to grow the game and to help inner city kids make better lives for themselves.
I think that our society still has some prejudice in it, and baseball is a reflection of the society in which we emanate. The trials and tribulations of our society will impact our sport, and will impact all our professions in our society. I think that we're getting better. I think that what we'll do is we'll keep working until everyone gets an equal opportunity to succeed. That's utopia.
The demographic of that meeting was pretty predictable. When I went to my first general managers' meetings in 1991, the demographics were not much different than they are today.
If we could have 10 MLB-affiliated academies or satellites over the next 10 years, I would be extremely happy. All you need is a shot in the arm in a lot of these areas.
The diversity isn't there. To have opportunities to get general managers' jobs, you need diversity at levels below general manager. A lot of the young guys were in the pipeline. They had the opportunity to work with others in the pipeline. If diverse candidates don't get that same opportunity early on, they won't get the opportunity later on.
Brooklyn has always been ahead of its time.
Our focus maybe went a little bit (too much) toward Latin America.
This is fantastic. Of all the things we've done lately in the industry this is one of the most important things -- to bring back baseball in America, to recapture it in urban areas. To see that structure come up, I feel almost like a proud father.
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