James Mosher Baseball: League sustained legacy of providing safe haven for youth in Baltimore

BALTIMORE - For 65 years, James Mosher Baseball has been a safe haven for youth in West Baltimore.

What started out as a simple idea to mentor youth through basketball, the founders thought the best way to engage inner city youth was on the baseball diamond.

The youth league has sustained a legacy of mentoring major league winners in life.

It's a legacy protected by generations of gatekeepers – Black men from West Baltimore – committed to uplifting our youth to their fullest potential.

"We saw the kids pulling away from baseball so we started to go after the younger kids," James Mosher Baseball President William Neal said. "We try to grab them and get their attention early, hoping that we could keep them wanting to play baseball and learn to be good citizens."

"We just take these young men, and then our young ladies, off the streets and put them into a program that will wrap their arms around them, and give them guidance outside of what the streets offer," league chairman Michael Singletary said.

These West Baltimore streets historically have been riddled with crime and bad influence over the years.

"I just want to, like help people, like I've always loved helping people ever since I was little," player Brendan Bunn said. "Either it's giving back or just simple as giving school supplies to my little cousins or anything like that, I've always love helping and love inspiring kids."

For more than six decades, James Mosher Little League is still guiding young men, and now empowering young women, to be better than the environment around them – a legacy that continues to hit for the cycle in keeping our youth focused and accountable.

 "It gives you something like more to focus on other than all this other stuff because it's very time-consuming and you got to be very committed to be able to do it," softball player Hailee Fields said.

As Fields blazes the basepaths of her young life, there's someone younger whom she inspires – her 12-year-old nephew Brendan Bunn, who understands the safe haven of the baseball diamond.

"It's definitely taking me away from everything bad going on around me, because I have many family members and many other friends that I've seen just going down the wrong path," Bunn said.

Young people find community and a home at James Mosher Baseball.

League organizers are worried less about how many players make it to the major leagues, but instead, how many winners they produce in life.

"As long as you're a good citizen, you're a businessman, you're an entrepreneur, you're a mayor, you come through this program, those are our major league players," Singletary said.

And if that's any indication of our future – then the generations of gatekeepers and our community – have to be proud of the young gems being guided – through the game of baseball.