GM Moore envisions local baseball academy
Wants to help youth grow into leaders
KANSAS CITY -- Royals general manager Dayton Moore has a vision of young people in Kansas City becoming passionate about the game of baseball.
Moore's Royals certainly rekindled interest in the team last year with their magical run through the playoffs.
But Moore also envisions a baseball academy in Kansas City to serve the community's youth. Moore spoke of that dream on Wednesday prior to the "First Pitch" luncheon at the Arrowhead North Club -- the luncheon also served as a fundraiser for Moore's foundation, "C You in the Major Leagues," which is designed to help the city's youth with all of life's challenges.
"I've always wanted to have an academy," Moore said. "Hopefully, one day we'll have a 'C You in the Major Leagues' academy to help youth in this community. We want to use baseball as a platform to grow young people into leaders. There are so many life lessons you can learn from baseball to grow up and become great husbands and great fathers.
"We would start at the youth league level, ages 5 and 6, and go through 12 and 13. We've got a lot of great youth programs in this community and great high-school programs, but we lose a lot of young people to baseball around the ages of 9 through 12.
"And we want to make sure we do a better job of maintaining that interest in baseball as an industry, and to use our expertise with the Kansas City Royals to maintain that passion. We want to keep growing the game in Kansas City. That's the goal."