It’s called the RBI World Series, and you’ll probably hear more about it in the future.
RBI stands for Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities, a program dealing with the reality that inner city youngsters have turned to other sports in the last two decades.
The idea is to provide a means of changing this trend, and last month RBI held its World Series, with games played at several Los Angeles sites and the championship game at Dodger Stadium. There were teams from throughout the United States and Santo Domingo.
RBI is likely to thrive here because its leader, John Young, has partnered with the people bringing the Jackie Robinson Stadium to West Los Angeles College. A lot of RBI games are likely to be played there in upcoming years.
“We were having a meeting about the stadium; he wasn’t there and I observed that we might not be able to finish this project without John Young,” said West LA College president Mark Rocha. “And then he arrived and I knew we were all right.”
In the recent RBI World Series for participants ages 13 through 16, two players were Daniel Hordo, a catcher from Venice High, and Alonzo Gonzalez from Santa Monica High. They went through two months of workouts before being chosen.
RBI has expanded to 200 United States cities and has 120,000 players.
Venice High coach Tim Alcanter has had two sons in the program and encouraged Hordo to participate. Hordo, who was on the Venice junior varsity last season, has three years left and will compete to be the starting catcher on the varsity next season.
