Rays' Chris Archer, academy make pitch to attract urban kids to baseball

LOS ANGELES – On opening day near the corner of E. Artesia Boulevard and Santa Fe Avenue in Compton, their names rasped from a bullhorn, they stepped forward and, when they remembered, they waved. Their proud parents, bored brothers and sisters, and doting aunties and uncles applauded politely from the greenish knolls that backed up to a row of trees that brought relief from the surprisingly aggressive late afternoon sun.

The field was perfect – chain-link dugouts, foul lines, outfield walls, a scoreboard and red, white and blue bunting lashed to the backstop. The baseballs were newish. The bats were of proper size. The chatter from the knolls was appropriately supportive.

These are the grounds of the Urban Youth Academy, the league of Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) and the young men of Compton, all built around a sport that reputedly may or may not be dying here, but certainly would not on opening day.

All for $25, unless their parents could not afford it. In that case, it was free, and take this uniform, this glove and these cleats with you. See you Saturday, we'll have some fun.

Chris Archer played baseball like this – from T-ball to coach pitch to machine pitch and beyond – in a small town outside Raleigh, N.C. called Clayton. He had the money for the registration fees and for lunch. He wasn't ever ashamed by the condition of his shoes, never had to share a glove, often had two parents in the bleachers, and didn't slink away when everybody went for ice cream afterwards. Even then he felt lucky that way, ahead of a game that was good to him before he was old enough or big enough or skilled enough to be good to it, too.

He was not at that field in Compton on opening day last week, but he believes he knows those boys and girls, or can come to know them. He knows what they face in a day, and what they see in the mirror, and maybe even what they fear over those trees on the knoll that keep the baseballs from rolling into the streets. He was born to a white mother and black father, adopted and raised lovingly by his mother's parents, and discovered what might have made him different, but maybe in a good way, maybe in the best way.

"I never felt out of place," he said, "when it came to sports."

He is 26 years old and making good money. The game is hard, of course, but he is finding his way, having become the ace of a Tampa Bay Rays staff that carries a growing tradition of aces. His charity, the Archway Foundation, gained traction with youths in the local community, though Archer felt there could be more focus. He called Major League Baseball about RBI, a program born about the time he was, beginning with 11 young men on a field in South Los Angeles. This year RBI will host, organize, operate, fund and, if necessary, hit fungoes to 250,000 primarily underprivileged boys and girls in more than 200 cities.

They, Archer decided, would be his focus. On Saturday, he will meet some of them in Cleveland – start there, introduce himself, tell his story, and hope it helps. He won't promise them a 97-mph fastball. He will not guarantee baseball will do for them what it did for him, or for the 55 RBI graduates chosen in the past four drafts, but he will promise the chance for it, and the rewards from it, and the balance and accountability that come with the hours spent among teammates and friends. He'll promise a good time, too.

"My parents," Archer said of Ron and Donna Archer, his biological mother's parents, "had this selfless character trait. I hope I learned that. I was adopted, bi-racial, living in the South. Ron Archer, my dad, had no reason to have a desire to raise me other than that's the person he is. He was going to do his best to make the best possible life for this human being."

That included a lot of important stuff, and baseball too. And he would peer down a dugout bench of kids who hardly looked anything like each other, and perhaps especially not like him, and a thought would come, "They're no different from me."

So, he shows up. He spends time. He smiles and reminds a peanut-sized right-hander to keep his elbow up. He'll be in Cleveland anyway, so why not?

"I'd like for children to look at me and think, 'He looks like me,' " Archer said.

Every big-league market has an RBI program. Nineteen of the 30 teams serve as directors of those leagues. In urban settings, there are ballfields to play on, coaches to learn from. At a time when baseball seems to have lost its footing in cities where the games are basketball or football or nothing at all, and when the number of black major leaguers has thinned, RBI lines a field and invites the neighborhood boys and girls to take their hacks, often whether they can afford it or not.

David James has run RBI for seven years. He'd not before received a phone call, or had a meeting, with anyone quite like Archer.

"It's refreshing that he made the reach-out to us," James said. "He was very heartfelt and sincere in wanting to get involved, supporting the efforts. … This is not a kick against anyone else, but sometimes certain player appearances tend to be scripted. And Chris just wants to be."

On that lovely diamond in Compton, the boys are setting their caps just so and the catcher is sorting through which shin guard goes on which shin and some local college players, serving as coaches, are explaining who's going to hit when. Soon, they'll chant, "One-two-three, play ball!"

In the office, Rodney Davis, senior manager of the Academy (and the father of Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Khris), sat at a long white table. Over his right shoulder, a flat-screen television carried the amateur draft. In a few minutes, the Texas Rangers, choosing fourth overall, would select pitcher Dillon Tate, who'd played on these fields and in RBI leagues. Rodney Davis has been in his position for five months, and before that scouted for several teams over 23 years, and before that played three seasons in the Dodgers organizations, and before that played ball in the parks and on the playgrounds of Compton, even watching an older Kenny Landreaux play over at Cressey Park. Landreaux, just then, walked into the office, and they laughed over an 8-year-old Davis who'd insisted on tagging along with the older boys. Landreaux works at the Academy, too.

"The greatest resource we need are people who care," Davis said. "That is what's been lacking."

Yes, it's sort of about baseball, the next generation of ballplayers and the next generation of fans. It's also about the next generation, just that, whatever it does or wherever it goes or whoever it chooses to be. A long time ago, Ron and Donna Archer took in Chris, and one day Chris understood what that meant, and today he believes it is his turn. He chose RBI, because he looked at all those boys and girls and thought, hey, they look like me.

"My role," he said, "is to be there and make it real for them. Just something real for them."