Baltimore elite inner-city baseball program Visions Select to showcase talent in Bahamas
BALTIMORE - More than a dozen Baltimore youth baseball players are getting ready to hit the skies to compete under the international spotlight.
Visions Select, an elite inner-city program for travel baseball, is going to the Bahamas this weekend to compete against some of the world's top athletes in the Babe Ruth Caribbean Championship.
The program, which has grown to 80 children across four teams, molds boys into young men. Beyond baseball, coaches emphasize education and life skills.
"It's my everything," shortstop Kendal Sellers told WJZ. "Other than my family and education, this is all I do."
These ballplayers spend 10 months of the year perfecting their craft, and the summer is when the competition heats up.
"This is a safe haven," said Corey Goodwin, co-founder and vice president of Visions Select. "It's like it's like chess, and so, we like to challenge our kids to think, and put them into situations that kind of challenge them mentally, physically, and baseball does that."
"Even if I mess up, you have to shake it off and move on to the next play, because if you don't, it's just going to pile up on errors," Sellers added. "It's the same in life."
The players are more than teammates. They have a special bond with each other.
"I tell them all the time you can talk to me about whatever. It doesn't have to be baseball," said Ricky Racks, the Visions Select 16u head coach.
The players come in and out of the program with big dreams, and a lot of accomplish.
"My goal is to not make my parents pay for college, go ahead for scholarship, education-wise, and then go at the end of the day play in the Major Leagues," Sellers said.
And to make the goals possible, they need community support to help them travel and showcase their talent.
"We pay for the lodging, the transportation, and back-and-forth, just to provide them the experience of something that they may never get to do, so we always need more dollars because these kids deserve everything that their counterparts get," Goodwin said.