NEWS & POLITICS On the south side, a quest to As the game’s popularity declines nationwide, the Morgan Park Mustangs are a beacon for the future of the sport. By MATTHEW RITCHIE
T Ernest Radcliffe has coached the Morgan Park Mustangs for 15 seasons. ZAHID KHALIL
keep
Black baseball alive
10 CHICAGO READER - JULY 21, 2022
here’s nothing out of the ordinary about Morgan Park High School’s baseball field. The beige dirt is arranged in the traditional diamond shape, with intermittent cracks and crevices befitting the average city baseball field. The grass is a lush, deep green, in great shape for the middle of April, thanks to months of rain and snow. The outfield’s fence distances are uneven: the left-field foul line wanders into the school’s softball diamond, while the right-field expanse is halted only by a chain-link fence. When I walk up to the field on the far south side on a Saturday afternoon this spring, I’m treated to an intrasquad scrimmage—Mustangs vs. Mustangs—after the opposing team pulled out of a scheduled game. The energy and decibel level is that of rival teams: their chirps and laughs can be heard from down Vincennes Avenue, lighting up the atmosphere of the sleepy street corner. But it’s just the Mustangs varsity team, wrapped in orange-and-green hoodies to ward off the extended Chicago winter. Looking around the field reveals a rare sight in high school baseball: every single person, whether it be a coach or player, is Black. Just 6 percent of Black high school students in cities choose to play baseball. In that context, Morgan Park’s varsity team is an enclave keeping the sport alive for Black teenagers. The varsity team has morphed into a beacon of consistency, becoming a national model for what Black high school baseball can achieve. Their history is woven into the fabric of the Chicago Public League (the athletic body for Chicago Public Schools) and its vaunted Jackie Robinson South conference.
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