Taking Initiative

Sports teams commonly put the arm on their municipality if they decide they want a new stadium. Team owners are rich people who didn't get to be that way by spending their own money if they could spend someone else's instead, so threatening to take a team down the road apiece has been a solid tactic.

My favorite baseball team, the Kansas City Royals, is going to build four baseball fields and indoor training complex and cover the operating costs themselves.

The catch is that the complex is actually not for the team, but instead for youth in the area of 18th and Vine, the once-vibrant center of African-American life and culture in segregated Kansas City. In recent years, the Negro League Baseball Museum and Jazz Museum have been the centerpiece of new investment in the area and some limited revitalization.

The museum was the result of decades of work by the Negro Leagues unofficial ambassador, Buck O'Neil, who spend his last working years as a scout for the Royals and then as a regular fixture in the Royals organization. This new Kansas City Urban Youth Academy will be built in the same neighborhood with an eye towards helping its youngsters who have little else in the way of help. State and local governments are partnering with Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association to develop the Academy and run it.

The Royals will also partner with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America to offer more than baseball and softball lessons, trying to teach life skills to kids who might not get to learn them in chaotic home environments.

General manager Dayton Moore said he had been developing the Academy plan for the last year and a half, meaning it should be thought-out and well-planned and won't wind up a cleared field and some rusty construction leftovers. Given Moore's recent successes in his day job, there is definitely some reason to hope that.