Last night, Phillies hitter Domonic Brown bashed his ninth home run in 10 games and the Cincinnatti Reds took a loss without injured Brandon Phillips, who led the NL in RBIs after the month of May.
While they may seem completely unrelated beside their superficial connection as two of baseball's few black stars, but their connection to one another is more than skin-deep. It all starts with Redan High School.
Both attended Redan, although their graduating classes were five years apart and in the years since they've finished high school, the baseball program has been a booming success. According to Baseball Reference, Redan is one of seven schools with a trio of alumni on Major League rosters and the only one with three.
Although Greg Goodwin (who is now a Dodgers scout) hasn't been Redan's baseball coach since 1999, has been critical to the program's success. During the years, Redan's program gradually saw its demographics change from an all-white student body to a school that is now 98 percent African-American, Goodwin was their renowned coach.
We didn’t think we would stop winning when we went from white to black,” Goodwin told the New York Times. “We take baseball seriously in our community.”
On May 30, Redan won it's first-ever state championship on the diamond and earned recognition for being the first all-black team from the Atlanta area to win a state championship since schools there were integrated, but Goodwin believes the divide between blacks and MLB is based on class and economics.
Via New York Times
Goodwin said any number of current youngsters might have the potential of a Brown or a Nelson or a Phillips. The residential areas that feed Redan, he said, are “busting at the seams” with youth leagues that are overwhelmingly African-American. Opportunities to play abound.
Families unable to afford the full tab for college discover that only those two sports generally offer full scholarships. The return on investment for baseball, especially with the heightened emphasis on costly travel teams, can be modest, or worse.
The drop-off in participation, Goodwin lamented, begins when blacks hit middle-school age. Football is the sport that elevates them to big-man-on-campus status. Basketball is the sport that can be practiced two-on-two, even solo, on ubiquitous blacktops or in gymnasiums.
Families unable to afford the full tab for college discover that only those two sports generally offer full scholarships. The return on investment for baseball, especially with the heightened emphasis on costly travel teams, can be modest, or worse.
