Miami Marlins outfielder Curtis Granderson has become well-known for his work in bringing the sport of baseball to hundreds of Chicago-area kids, and a camp being hosted by his Chicago Baseball and Education Academy is helping to do just that.
The six-week long camp, hosted at the University of Illinois-Chicago, is aimed at helping to educate kids, and to prepare them for the coming baseball season.
“It’s a special opportunity. You can get really good work here,” Justyn Hart, one of the athletes at the camp, said. “They break it down to you really well, to the point where you just gotta get better at it.”
Granderson and CBEA teamed up with another Chicago-native, former big league player Lou Collier, to create the free clinics, but the group’s focus is on more than just getting kids ready for success on the diamond.
“We’re teaching them baseball, and we’re teaching them life skills in this beautiful facility where they can grow and meet other teammates and kids from other communities in the name of baseball,” he said.
Collier and the rest of the camp organizers are impressed by the kids’ approach to the game and how well the camp has come together, and he hopes that we could potentially see some of these kids in the big leagues someday.
“We may look up and two or three of these kids might be playing in the major leagues,” he said. “You never know. So that’s why something like this is so special.”
