Johnson, Curry create meaningful surprise for alma mater's baseball program 

ATLANTA -- As Termarr Johnson and Xzavion Curry walked out of Benjamin E. Mays High School’s main building earlier this week, students on the baseball team and cheerleading squad followed. Outside, a large truck sat at the curb. Johnson and Curry, two Mays High alums, stopped behind the truck and the students gathered for the big reveal.

Johnson and Curry pulled the big truck door open and … pandemonium. The kids went wild. They saw new bats and gloves. They saw a new pitching machine. There were helmets. There was even an “L screen," used to throw batting practice.

Johnson and Curry -- representing The Players Alliance -- donated this new gear to their alma mater in hopes that it pushes forward the baseball program.

“To be able to give back to anybody, and especially to my alma mater at Mays High School, it’s definitely surreal, and I’m definitely happy to be able to do that,” Johnson said to MLB.com. “God says give. Just doing His due diligence and doing what He tells me to do, and I’m grateful that He’s given me the opportunity to give.”

The Players Alliance is a nonprofit organization founded by current and former professional baseball players that aims to “make the game more equitable and accessible,” the nonprofit writes on its website. The group does this by helping communities that may lack the resources to play baseball at a high level. Johnson and Curry helped kick off the Bat 2 School initiative, which serves to “provide an immediate infusion of resources to public schools to increase baseball and softball participation among kids from marginalized and under-resourced communities” -- like Mays High, which is located in southwest Atlanta.

Johnson has been a part of MLB's programming since childhood. He was a member of the Atlanta Braves RBI program in 2018 and '19, and he also played in several of MLB's signature events, including the Breakthrough Series, Elite Development Invitational and Dream Series, as well as the High School All-American Game and the High School Home Run Derby.

Johnson and Curry are two role models for the current students at their alma mater. Johnson, an infielder drafted No. 4 overall in 2022 by the Pirates, is Pittsburgh’s No. 6 prospect. Curry, who graduated high school six years before Johnson, is a right-handed pitcher in the Minors with the Rockies. He has had MLB stints with Cleveland and Miami.

And now, the two close friends helped provide the kids at their high school with a wonderful surprise -- and a necessary one. In addition to bats, gloves, helmets, the L screen and the pitching machine, the haul also included catching gear, netting to line the batting cage and a batting practice shell.

“When I was here, we had the bare minimum of baseball stuff,” Curry said. “I remember when we got a scoreboard for the first time and we all came to the field and we were happy. Our batting cages out there down at the field, it was just a little batting cage by the trees and it wasn’t really much. It’ll really help the program excel and just move in the right direction. ... Just to boost the morale and all of that.”

Added Johnson: “We didn’t have much, man, to be honest with you. We were happy to have a scoreboard, when the scoreboard came. To be able to give those types of resources to the kids and seeing how [far] it’s come, and being able to help is amazing for me on my front. It’s only going to help Mays baseball be better.”

The Players Alliance will be donating to other public schools around Atlanta this offseason. Mays High was only the beginning. (Last offseason, though, Johnson donated cleats, on his own accord, to his high school.)

The reaction of the students Tuesday?

The best part.

“Oh man, it feels great,” Curry said. “When we were younger, we always wished somebody would come bless us with things, and to be able to be that person blessing the community, it’s just humbling and it feels great. To see the kids’ reaction-- they’re happy. The gloves, they’re visually appealing [and] the bats. It’s kind of like me, when I get a new glove, and I'm in the league, like, ‘Oh man, this looks nice.’ They get that same feeling like, ‘Wow, this is nice and this is something that’s mine.’”