The Kids Are Alright

Back from a week in England, I jumped right into the fray with a couple of baseball games over the weekend, but they were not your typical games. And it wasn't because the official scorer had a British accent.

Or maybe I should say English accent. Either way, the scorer was someone the folks in England would call a "really nice bloke." Originally from Cambridge in the UK, the gentleman (whose name I failed to catch) was in charge of keeping track of the 2008 Congressional Bank Baseball Classic, which was played this past Saturday at Nationals Park.

The accent of the scorer was a kick, because I had only been back on American soil for 16 hours. For a split second, I thought my return flight was a dream and I was still across the Atlantic with a football (soccer) game set to break out.

The trip to England was something I had planned to do with my son before the recent death of my father. We decided to go on with the trip as a tribute to my dad, who always found time for me.

(At this time, I would also like to express my sincere thanks for all the wonderful e-mails of support I received from listeners and readers over the past couple of weeks. I only wish I could adequately express how much that support has helped me and my family.)

The trip was perfect, as was getting back in the U.S. with a full day of baseball on my docket. But as I said, it wasn't just baseball, but the nation's pastime in the nation's capital. It was baseball as a unifying force in a city that sometimes can seem divided.

The Congressional Bank Baseball Classic was, in short, a celebration of baseball in the District of Columbia. In retrospect, I am sorry I didn't catch the "bloke's" name, but maybe in some ways it's fitting I didn't, because this was a day for those behind the scenes to remain nameless, and for the spotlight to shine on some of the best student-athletes in the nation's capital.

The idea for the Congressional Bank Baseball Classic, if you pardon the mixing of sports metaphors, was a slam dunk. In one day, the best high school baseball teams in the city from both public and private schools compete in a showcase event at Nationals Park.

Henry Champ, whom I had gotten to know through WTOP's Mark Plotkin, was one of the organizers behind the event, and I can still hear the excitement in his voice when he called me a few months back to tell me about the plans to showcase D.C. high school baseball on a Major League field.

This great day of baseball came together because Champ and other D.C. residents got together and decided they were going to make it happen. No personal glory or personal agendas. It would just be a day for D.C. baseball.

With a Major League park in place, it was time to do something for the city's kids in a major league way. In many ways on Saturday, Nationals Park became a real part of the fabric of D.C. It was no longer a debated stadium for millionaires to play in, or that place you see on television with those nice cushy seats behind home plate.

Nationals Park was suddenly the neighborhood ball field. Neighbors came out to cheer on their young heroes who live around the corner or up the block. To the Nationals credit, they went to great lengths to make sure the day was a success, and even waited through a long rain delay to get the field ready to play again.

With the heavy rain that moved through on Saturday, it would have been easy for the Nationals to say, "It was nice having you guys here, but we are going to have to call it a day." Instead, through all the bad weather, at least parts of all four games of the Congressional Bank Baseball Classic were played.

That's right, four games. There was a private school match-up between nationally ranked St. Albans and Maret School, and a public school game between Woodrow Wilson High School and McKinley Tech. The winner of each game met in a championship game, after an All-Star game mixing the top talent from both public and private schools.

For the record, St. Albans defeated Wilson in the title game, and it was the Blue team that beat the Red team to win the All-Star game, but this day was not about results. The kids competed, but what sticks with you is not the score, but the joy of that competition.

D.C. schools seemed in fine shape for a day. Listening to WTOP, I hear about the problems and challenges facing D.C. schools. On Saturday, we were talking about kids who were succeeding in advanced placement courses, and where they were going to go to college.

It fit right in with the mission statement of the event:

To use baseball as a platform to promote exemplary achievement of student-athletes by developing skills learned as part of an outstanding baseball program: leadership, teamwork, and mentorship. To generate resources to support D.C. based youth baseball programs. To highlight the recent successes of the D.C. Public School system, its teachers and students.

Mission accomplished, but it is only the beginning. The plan is to have this special day for the best in D.C. high school baseball every year. It will hopefully motivate whole neighborhoods to come to Nationals Park, and, like Saturday, get kids to wear their Little League uniforms and dream of one day playing on the big league field.

A kid from the District can do more than just dream. It was Cardozo High School that gave baseball the great Maury Wills. And now Wilson High's Emmanuel Burriss is in his rookie season with the San Francisco Giants.

In fac,t Burriss will be in town this week when the Nationals play the Giants. Burriss' parents were at Nationals Park Saturday night to cheer on Wilson against St Albans. Burriss' dad even wore Emmanuel's Wilson High jersey.

Nationals Park was the place to be Saturday. You see, as The Who told us, the kids are alright, and with more events like the Congressional Bank Baseball Classic, they can be even better.

(Copyright 2008 by WTOP. All rights reserved.)