- The city dubbed America's most dangerous had its
highest murder rate ever.
- Chicago is not the most dangerous city
in America.
Camden, New Jersey has that title
on a per capita basis.
- I'm here in the park side section of the city,
an area that has been labeled drug-infested
and very dangerous.
- Alarmingly, Camden's murder rate
has more than doubled this year,
compared to last year from...
(mumbling)
- Life here in Camden is dangerous.
Life here in Camden is deadly.
For every moment, for every second
that the kids are out here playing,
they're not getting shot at.
For every second that they're here,
they're not witnessing something that can get them hurt
later on.
The stakes are plain, and right in front of us.
For kids that aren't participating,
you know they're hustling.
For kids that are participating in the league,
they're safe.
(dog barking)
(sad music)
- When I was a kid,
the expectation was that you would play baseball.
That Pyne Poynt Park would be a part of who you were
and what you did.
But, by the time I'd become a teenager,
there was this expectation that young men
my age would become the bread earners
by going out onto the corners.
We were right in the midst of the crack wars,
and so, most of the young men
that had once played baseball, were now on the corners,
and most of the people that had coached
were now using.
I'd dropped out of high school, and began dealing drugs
like many of my counterparts.
I would eventually be arrested and incarcerated
and end up serving about 8 years
in New Jersey State Prison.
When I came home,
it was truly with a sense that I had to give something back.
So I came up with the idea of baseball.
Baseball hadn't been played in Camden
for almost two decades,
but I knew that there was still a connection
here in this neighborhood and here in this city
with the sport.
So I said look, if the city's gonna be crazy,
if the neighborhood's gonna be on fire,
let's try to create one safe place for kids
in the neighborhood,
and let's start a baseball league.
(phone ringing)
Hey Jo, this is Brian,
just calling to see if you had practice tonight
with the softball.
Matter of fact, I'm gonna text all the other coaches
and see who has practice tonight
and who still needs the catcher's gear.
- Okay, cool.
- Alright.
- See you then.
- Alright, see you then, thank you.
When I started coming out
and saying hey we're gonna play baseball,
I used to get people looking at me like I was crazy.
But I had to be that leader
and in many instances I had to be fearless
and be the one willing to go up to ask the drug dealer,
you know, between these hours, would you mind not hustling?
That's just what we had to do.
And over time, the hustling fell by the wayside,
and we became the norm in the park.
- There you go, there you go.
- Nice catch, college boy.
- When we started, we ended up with a hundred kids
that year, and it blew our mind.
Today, we have over 650 kids playing,
and that's kids playing from age 5
all the way up to age 18.
If you sat back and closed your eyes,
you'd just hear the ping,
or the crack of the older kids
when they use their wood bats.
The sound of the ball hitting leather,
cleats scraping the gravel.
Kids rattling on the fence, you know,
cheering go batter, batter, batter.
People used to yell and scream because something was wrong,
and now people are yelling and screaming
because something fantastic is happening.
(cheering)
Come game time,
it's the most beautiful thing in the world.
So daddy's gonna teach you today
how to hit off the batting tee, alright?
As a father who tells his daughter constantly
that you can do anything that you want
and be anything you want, you know, you look up
and you remember why you're doing it.
Alright, good job.
Ready?
So much of our life in Camden
and so much of our lives in our urban cores
is being hard, but kids for the few hours
that they're here,
they're just free to act out
and become whatever hero they want to be.
They're just free to laugh.
It's not always gonna be easy,
and there are forces at play
that, they would love to see me fail.
I have to continue to dig deep
and put the grind in because I just know I gotta do it.
Come on.
Good.
If I don't do it, no one else is gonna do it.
You know I tell myself there's plenty of time
to rest when I'm dead.
Until then,
I'm gonna live life to the fullest.