Black youth baseball coaches in Tampa Bay that practice white baseball racism

Hello Weekly Challenger readers. I am Mr. Thomas M. English (aka) Mr. English or Coach.

I am a great artist and a great mentor to our youth, with thousands of kids that call me Daddy.

The reason why?

For the past 25 years I have been a great artist and a great mentor to our youth. Ten years in teaching the youth about television production, “Hollywood in the hood,” and 15 years in reviving Negro baseball by way of teaching and coaching our inner-city youth about black baseball here in the Tampa Bay area as well as in other cities about this ancient African stick and ball game, which here in America it is called baseball.

Or maybe it is better to say, “unwanted youth baseball.” Unwanted youth baseball is inner-city youth who would like to play youth baseball, but have no one to play against.

For 14 years I’ve hosted inner-city youth baseball training camps and programs in Bartlett Park, Campbell Park and Childs Park, along with the Ridgecrest Park in Largo, parks in Clearwater and Tampa.

Each week before and during baseball season I would have an array of well-trained black youth baseball players and teams that are all ready to play youth baseball games, scrimmages or warm-ups against youth baseball teams. For the past 14 years I’ve asked the same or new white youth baseball coaches or managers and the answer has been “No.”

As a matter of fact, I’ve asked the same black youth baseball coaches and managers from Wildwood, Burg and even Belmonte Heights in Tampa to play with us, but have been given the same response as the white coaches.

For 14 years I have been trying to keep these kids off the streets, detour them from drugs and violence and also make a difference in their lives by playing baseball, but these same black youth baseball coaches disrespectfully say “No.”

Throughout these 14 years of trying to find youth baseball games for black youth, I have had more youth baseball games with the white coaches than with black coaches that are supposed to represent our youth and their future.

But they don’t really care… just like the open variety of other “care for youth” organizations that don’t really care. To be told in the next journal.