When Bruce Wilson, a father who lives in the West Englewood neighborhood, created a private youth baseball association four years ago, the neighborhood park where the 11- and 12-year-olds played was no field of dreams.
“Say you have a regulation baseball field and imagine the hand of God creating it with a compass (the instrument used for inscribing circles) to perfect specifications,” Wilson said with a laugh. “Well, ours was like someone had drawn it freehand. The boys hardly knew where to place the bases. It was a mess. The diamond was lopsided, and the measurements were all wrong.”
The 12 boys, however, viewed Lindblom Park as a diamond in the rough.
And they would continue to see it this way even though they competed against suburban teams in the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) whose baseball fields were like mini-stadiums: They had grass in the infield and home-run fences; bleachers for the home teams as well as for the visitors; concession stands; and announcers who called the players’ names over a PA system when they batted.
“The [suburban] players had uniforms for home games and away games,” said Wilson. “I mean, each boy had a separate uniform that looked brand-new! And they each had their own $300 baseball bat. We had one bat for the entire team. And our uniforms had grass stains and were different shades of gray.”
Though the players of the West Englewood Athletic Association were winning games against Chicago Park District teams, the boys were struggling against the suburban teams. The West Englewood players lost all but one game, and suffered embarrassing losses. One final score: 27-2.
Often it’s the coaches who give the pep talks to the dejected players, offering such platitudes as, “We’ll get ’em next time.” But Wilson said in this case it was his players who consoled the coaches.
“We wanted them to stop,” he said. “I was like: ‘What did I get these kids into?’ But we’d drive away from a game and they were never discouraged. They would say, ‘We know we’re different, but we want to play.’ These boys had so much heart.”
The players included Wilson’s son, Branden Wilson, and his best friend, Devon Robinson, who, when I wrote about him in 2007, was a shy and scrappy little kid hanging out at Lindblom Park for hours because his home life was less than optimal. (Recently, I saw Devon, now 16 and 6-foot-4, during a Saturday practice game and was thrilled to discover how confident and self-possessed he has become.)
Some of the other boys came from similar, desperate situations and were growing up in Englewood, where the rite of passage for young men often means joining gangs rather than learning life lessons on a baseball field.
Wilson is a college graduate and a facility manager for a manufacturing company. He could live elsewhere, but his heart is in Englewood. He said that because the boys were determined, so were the coaches.
The next year, the West Englewood team was undefeated in the Park District. In the AAU, the young men won more games than the year before, and their losses weren’t humiliating.
“We weren’t one of the elite teams, but we held our own,” Wilson said. “I bought tapes and CDs and training manuals to help make (the players) better. We also started practicing in December, which was unheard of. We couldn’t wait until March.”
After school, the boys had to complete their homework and then go to the Park District’s field house for practice. On the weekends, they went to a batting cage.
“I said, ‘You see a kid and you know you’re smarter or can play better than that kid, but why is he beating you? Well, that kid works harder, studies harder, practices more. You have to work hard.'”
As the team improved, more parents brought their lawn chairs out to Lindblom Park to watch the boys. In 2008, after they won the Park District’s championship, the district closed the field for about a year to resurface it. The Park District also bought the team uniforms with regulation socks and belts. More men volunteered to coach.
Wilson said that from the beginning, his goal, and that of the Lindblom Park supervisor, was to give these young boys something constructive to do during the summer and lay the groundwork for them to do something constructive later in their lives.
In 2009, Wilson changed the name of the group to the Skyline Youth Athletic Association, which now has 13 teams across the city. Skyline also is working on a partnership with the foundation of former Chicago Bear Otis Wilson (no relation to Bruce).
“Four years later and we haven’t had one child in the program who’s been in trouble,” Bruce Wilson said. “In the environment they live in, it’s very easy to take a different path. I’m proud that they’re all good students too.”
Last month, in the Public League Baseball Championship game at U.S. Cellular Field, one of his team members played for Harlan High School, and three others played for Simeon Career Academy. Harlan won.
Because 16 is the age limit for participating in Skyline, this is the last season for the first group of boys from the West Englewood Athletic Association. Six players from the original team remain. Their first game of the season was Saturday.
Wilson said that although many of the boys are involved in other positive activities, they’re always in danger of succumbing to the streets. Recently, one of his players put a picture of himself on Facebook that made him look like a thug.
“I told him to remove it,” said Wilson. “I don’t want them to get into the mindset of even pretending to be a thug. That’s not what excelling in baseball was all about, and it’s not what we’ve worked so hard for over the years.”
