Atlanta City Council and Braves Foundation to Create New Baseball Complex at Southside Park

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — The Atlanta City Council, the Atlanta Braves Foundation and two other organizations are investing heavily in youth baseball in South Atlanta to increase participation among African Americans .

“They don’t see anyone who looks like them playing baseball, and that’s a real thing,” said District 12 Councilman Antonio Lewis.

Lewis grew up playing baseball on the fields of Southside Park in Fulton County, about 12 miles from downtown Atlanta.

“A big Braves fan,” Lewis said, making a few cuts on the field Tuesday.

But the days of Fred McGriff, David Justice and Otis Nixon are over. The demographics of the Braves teams from the 90s don’t match those of today’s teams.

“We need to see more of us,” Lewis said before throwing a pitch deep into the right-field gap.

The numbers are striking. African-Americans in Major League Baseball peaked in 1995 with just under 20 percent of players. Today, that figure is closer to 6%.

Lewis grew up watching Atlanta influence professional sports. He thinks it can influence baseball, too.

“Atlanta influences everything, but we don’t influence baseball,” he lamented.

Several organizations want to change this. A new collaboration between the city of Atlanta, Morehouse College, the Fulton County Recreational Foundation and the Atlanta Braves Foundation will pump nearly $4 million into a new baseball complex at Southside Park.

“It will rival any field in the state of Georgia – any field in America – once we finish it,” Lewis predicted.

The project is taking place in the Lewis district and will likely be completed on newly purchased land nearby. The complex will be able to host traveling baseball tournaments and Morehouse College home games.

“This entire community needs this investment,” Lewis said. “This will change lives.”

Lewis said the hope is to have this complex completed within a year. The completed complex will be named after Hank Aaron.

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