Sunday, July 29, 2001
RBI: A Cincinnati success story
Baseball program embraces diversity, opportunity
By John Erardi
The Cincinnati Enquirer
One of the better feel-good stories in a summer of unrest in the Queen City is Cincinnati's RBI team, a blend of black and white high school players headed to the RBI World Series in Orlando.
RBI stands for Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities, a program begun in 1989 by Major League Baseball, which helps fund it.
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RBI LEADERS
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Chris Taylor, an Aiken grad, is going to Kentucky State.
(Jeff Swinger photo)
Here are the eight members of Cincinnati RBI bound for college in the fall.
• Doug Kruthaupt, SS-P, LaSalle HS, Butler
• Jontay Love, 2B-P, Mt. Healthy, Kentucky State
• Klinton McGhee, OF, Walnut Hills, Holy Cross
• Keith Reinhart, C-P, Sycamore, Saracosa Jr. College
• Chris Taylor, C-P, Aiken, Kentucky State
• Phillip (Bo) White, 2B-P, Princeton, Kentucky State
• Roman Duty, OF-P, Summit Country Day, Charleston
• Adam Wilkerson, P, Loveland, Ohio University
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Although Cincinnati's involvement in the program dates only to 1999, its senior team (16- to 18-year-olds) is bound for the RBI World Series on Friday after winning the Central Regional here two weeks ago.
Chris Taylor, 18, who lives in College Hill and was a catcher at Aiken High School where he graduated with honors and a 3.0 grade-point average, is one of the key ingredients in the chemistry of a team that overwhelmed its five opponents by a combined score of 56-15 in the Central Regional.
“I may have had more opportunity than some of the guys (on the team) to play baseball growing up,” said Taylor, “because of the good Knothole teams in College Hill and because I had I had lot of support at home — a mom and dad and three brothers. But we have all kinds of backgrounds on the team, and I see that as a real positive.”
Of the 17 players on the team, 11 are black and six are white.
Eight schools are represented, all the way from city-public (four players from Hughes, two from Aiken, one each from Withrow, Western Hills and Walnut Hills), to suburban (one each from Sycamore, Loveland, Princeton, Mount Healthy and Indian Hill) to parochial (one each from St. Xavier and LaSalle) to private (one from Summit Country Day).
The team is coached by former Reds minor-leaguer Chris Nelms (now the athletic director at Hughes and a Reds scout), former Negro Leaguer Don Johnson and former RBI player Craig Smith, who is headed for Alabama State where he will study to become an athletic trainer.
Of the 11 recently graduated players on the team, eight already committed to colleges. Six others will be seniors, and one of them is likely to be drafted (pitcher/third baseman Shawn Achielle of Western Hills) and another might be (outfielder Enye Willingham of St. Xavier).
On a scale of 1-10, Nelms said he would give Cincinnati RBI's program a “6,” because although it's been successful in fielding All-Star teams to compete in the postseason tournament, it hasn't done a good job yet of finding new players and creating new teams in the inner city.
“The RBI program is designed to give kids an opportunity to play that otherwise wouldn't have it,” Nelms said. “From those leagues, you choose your All-Stars. So, we've put the cart before the horse. We want to get the horse established. That's the harder job, and it's the one that matters most.”
He said some of the reasons for that lack of success are the need for coaches in the inner city, conflicts of schedules between regular leagues and RBI leagues, and the need for more corporate support.
Cincinnati RBI has received $5,000 each of the last three years from the Reds. Cincinnati Bell bought equipment for the team, and there have been some smaller contributions from community organizations. Major League Baseball provided Cincinnati with a $6,000 line of credit each of the past two seasons to host the regional and is paying to fly the team to and from Orlando.
Nelms' letters to individual Reds players seeking their financial and time support have not met with any response, although Cincinnati RBI has received financial support in the past from Griffey International.
“Players in other cities are doing their part,” Nelms said. “Gary Sheffield's a big supporter of RBI in Los Angeles, and the same for Eric Davis in the places he's played. There are Reds players who are wearing RBI T-shirts, so they know about us, but they aren't doing anything to help us.”
As a child, Taylor said, his sports time was split evenly between basketball and baseball. Taylor said when he wasn't playing basketball, he'd get his father or brother — who both played ball in high school — to go to the nearby school field to throw him batting practice or hit him groundballs.
“A lot of guys prefer the action of basketball and football, but I think that's based on what they see, not what they've experienced,” said Taylor, 6 feet 1 and 190 pounds, who was first-team all-conference in baseball and basketball (small forward) at Aiken. “If you play baseball, you learn there's a lot more going on than what you see. And to get good at it, you have to begin playing at a young age to develop the necessary hand-eye skills. I did that, but I believe if I'd had the right coaching early in my career, I could have been way better than I am now. That's part of what RBI is about.”
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Baseball program embraces diversity, opportunity
