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“They must not like each other,” whispered Wanda Butts,
daughter of storied former little league baseball coach John
Butts, who piloted Toledo’s young, all black Lincoln School
Tigers in the late 1950s and early 60s.
Toledo City Council Recreation Committee Chairman Cecelia
Adams, PhD, was being bombarded with one verbal brush-back
pitch after another, apparently designed to intimidate and
send a clear message.
In an age of rising youth violence and absence of
participation in positive summer recreational activities,
Adams was advocating for the City’s participation in a
Little League sanctioned Tee-Ball program for the central
city. The program would replace a pipeline to prison or gang
membership with teamwork, skills development and a conduit
for higher levels of youth baseball.
Adams assured the committee that there would be no financial
costs to the City and asked only that it serve as a
repository for registration fees and donations.
However, instead of support, Adams received only shade and
steeled resistance as one by one, committee members ganged
up to pummel her with political “chin music.”
Council President Steven Steel wondered aloud if there would
be enough interest and community participation. Councilwoman
Yvonne Harper worried whether her constituents would
“misconstrue” that some of the recently passed 0.75 percent
income tax levy receipts would be applied to tee-ball.
Councilman Larry Sykes complained about not getting the
informational packets in time to adequately prepare and
whether it was proper to place the issue on the agenda of a
budget hearing.
Why such vigorous pushback on the topic of bringing back kid
baseball, once embraced by the black community because of
its styles for the game and ability to direct black youth
away from negative neighborhood activities?
A Foul Ball?
Perhaps Councilwoman Theresa Gabriel, who is not on the
committee but attended the hearing, provides the best clue
to the source of the acrimony. “…I cannot see supporting an
ordinance in the fashion it was presented….I was told that
everything was referred to a committee hearing, and you
[Adams] chose, as chair, to merge this meeting on tee-ball,
little league, whichever one you choose to call it, because
I hear a lot of ‘I, I, I’s’ and I have a problem about ‘I’s.’
I like to hear ‘we’ and in the paper [Blade] yesterday it
said council was moving forward. Well, as I explained to
you, but you said you didn’t write the article, which I
already was intelligent enough to know that,” Gabriel
chastened.
While little leagues currently exist in the Trilby area of
west Toledo, the Shoreland area of Point Place, in the
Heatherdowns neighborhood of South Toledo and on the East
Side at the East Toledo Family Center, it appears that for
the time being, then, there will be no little league or
tee-ball in the central city.
A Dropped Ball Error, an Attempted Stolen Base or Who Gets
the Credit?
Ohio State Senator and Minority Whip Edna Brown initially
presented the issue, obtained bylaws and assembled pertinent
information, council members say privately. When Brown could
not attend an organizational meeting because of legislative
priorities in Columbus, meetings were changed from the
Police Athletic League on Manhattan Boulevard to the 21st
floor City Council offices and Brown was not notified, they
add.
Adams, in the view of other council members, then, has since
been making unilateral decisions rather than seeking
consensus. Various council members view this Adams’
perceived “solo efforts” to get the tee-ball legislation on
the City’s agenda as an unacknowledged mistake.
Adams, however, disputes this. “I was contacted by a man
[Willie Copeland] who is very ill and his wife is gravely
ill,” she states. “This is a broad-based community
partnership with a board and the idea was to have a council
member from each district to serve on the board. I have met
several times to discuss the legislation with my peers. So
the effort was not for my glory, but to help people and to
keep their dream moving. I was merely trying to help someone
by pulling in various players who could bring in the
resources possible to make a resident’s dream a reality,”
Adams says.
Senator Edna Brown, allegedly, wants to make tee-ball her
own signature effort for 2017 and Councilman Sykes
reportedly still bears open wounds over payday lending
legislation he feels was co-opted by Adams.
So, at the root of the acrimony may lie a “Who gets the
Credit?” dispute which could be a costly error for those
at-large council members running for re-election in 2017.
Extra Innings?
What can be done to get central city tee-ball back in the
game?
Councilwoman Sandy Spang’s understated questions perhaps
provide the best way forward to a reasonable conclusion of
the contest.
“Is it required that there be a city sponsorship to begin a
league,” she asked the Little League representative? To
Department of Parks and Recreation’s Commissioner Lisa Ward,
Spang also asked, “Does the City play any role beyond simply
giving permission to use the parks for games and practice in
any of the 50 baseball and softball leagues in Toledo?”
Municipalities are occasionally involved in baseball
leagues, but not always. Of the 50 or so ball leagues in
Toledo, there is only one, according to Ward, that the city
provides “a little bit more management,” by helping to
assign referees.
Yet, perhaps, the only consensus seems to be that an
independent nonprofit should drive the effort without City
of Toledo involvement. The City does not have the desire,
the staff, the finances and, “everything they touch turns to
crap,” according to a person familiar with the program.
As for me, my conclusion is “Who’s on first, What is on
second, and I Don’t Know is on third.” What we now need, is
just someone to step up to the plate.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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