MLB wraps up inner-city ID Tour in the Bronx

Major League Baseball recently finished hosting ID Tour Events in 12 different U.S. cities searching for young talented youth baseball players. Select players were invited to participate in this exclusive event to further their game and audition for future consideration to play in MLB’s youth showcase events.

The ID Tour made its final stop in the Bronx on May 22, where players from the region came together to play ball with one another. The 45 participants hope to use the experience as a stepping stone to continue their baseball careers in college and beyond.

Throughout the event, players went through workouts like baserunning, infield, outfield, pitching, and catching drills. They also had the opportunity to hear and learn from MLB's senior coordinator of baseball development Kindu Jones and vice president of baseball development Del Matthews as well as Tyler Roche, a Bronx native and development alumnus.

"The tour started because of coming here. These are the areas that don’t get as much exposure,” Jones said at Roberto Clemente State Park in the Bronx. “It’s important to do these and again build that sustainability because now this is year three. Now they know we are always coming back. Now the turnouts are just getting larger and larger.”

The ID Tour is focused on visiting different areas to give athletes from underserved areas the ability to show off their talent. These players -- predominately Black and Hispanic -- now have a platform that they may not have had otherwise.

“We are trying to identify kids from the inner city,” Matthews said. “That’s extremely important to our initiatives to make sure we have diverse representation. It’s open. We’re not charging kids to go through a workout. It’s just a great opportunity to interact with kids from the inner city to encourage them around the game of baseball and make sure that they are handling their business in the classroom and hopefully, there are some rewards on the other side of that.”

The aspiring players also have the chance to talk with players who have been through the process before, like Roche. A pitcher at St. John's who had season-ending Tommy John surgery in March, Roche said he had the chance to be recruited through the tour and wanted to show kids they could have the same opportunity he did.

“They come out to areas like the Bronx, New York, and they get kids that come from sometimes really tough situations and they just turn you around,” Roche said. “They really make you feel like, ‘Look, we brought you here because we think you can be a part of this. That you're that good.’”

In July, some of the players will have the opportunity to play at the Hank Aaron Invitational, which takes place at the Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach, Fla. But all participants at the ID Tour had the same goal: develop tools to improve their play on the diamond.

“I’m hoping to gain exposure, knowledge from these great coaches and great competition from these players,” participant TJ Bradford said. “The angle is just to get better, learn as much as I can, absorb as much knowledge and hopefully come out a better player.”

The ID Tour is expected to continue in the future as Jones, Matthews and the rest of the development team aims to identify potential and give chances to kids in historically unrepresented areas.

“That’s the exciting thing in this whole process is when you can find talent in the areas that are less exposed,” Jones said. “You really call those the ‘diamonds in the rough.’ That’s when you start to rub your hands and you’re like, ‘Man, this is exactly why we are here.’”