Diamonds In The Rough

Carter, in turn, had to learn to run weekly meetings attended by coaches who were accustomed to boardrooms, to delegate authority and, hardest of all, to relinquish some of the reins to the newcomers. This, even Carter agrees, was done with mixed success. "I speak my mind—that's the kind of person I am," says Carter. "I'm ready to fight, to argue, to play devil's advocate—and some people can't handle that. I'm damn sure I ran off a couple of coaches with that attitude. Then again, they weren't the kind of coaches we need out here anyway."

"It wasn't a well-oiled machine by any stretch," says Bill Bowman, Kikuyu coach and a real estate broker. "There were a lot of bumps along the way because Al didn't feel the need to compromise."

For the most part, however, 1991 was a peaceful summer at Division and Sedgwick. The league title in both the younger and the older divisions was won by the Ewe (pronounced EE-wee) squad. The league's all-star team of nine-to 12-year-olds, the Nubian, took one small step toward the Little League World Series in Williamsport when it defeated Irving Park team, 13-2, before losing in the next round. After the season ended, many of the coaches and players kept in touch through camping trips and baseball and hockey games. Muzikowski assembled a team that traveled to Dubuque, Iowa, to play Little League teams there. The players also took rides in a crop duster, splashed around in a swimming hole, and found, as nine-year-old rightfielder Luke Rogers put it, "a whole lotta corn." That's not to say that Cabrini-Green was suddenly transformed into the suburbs. Early in the season, players on the nine-to 12-year-old Mandinka team began sneaking bats from the equipment bag to take home with them. The coach, Leon Boyd, a restaurant host, discovered that some of the children had to make a dangerous traversal of several gangs' territories to get to Carson and needed the bats for protection. Boyd started giving them rides in his car.

Then there was Wade Elliston, the 15-year-old third baseman for the Ashanti, who one day was standing on the corner of Clybourn and Division streets, a block west of the field, and got caught in the middle of a drive-by shooting. He escaped with a wound in his right leg.

And there was umpire Darryl (Smiley) Scott, a 31-year-old Cabrini-Green native and one of the few local adults to take an active interest in the league. Scott, who had played in Carter's leagues as a kid, had enrolled four of his children in the league and spoke on occasion of coaching his own team. In July 1991, after a night of drinking, he drove the wrong way down Ohio Street, killing a young woman and severely injuring himself. "He made a mistake," says his brother Travis, who umpired the league's playoff and championship games last August in his brother's place.

As for Carson field itself, however, the gangs stayed away. "It's a sanctified place," says Carter. "The gangs know what's going on there, and they respect it."

Carter has been asked by the Chicago police department to design similar programs for the Robert Taylor Homes and Altgeld Gardens. He envisions similar leagues in all 19 Chicago housing developments and an African-American Youth World Series, perhaps starting as soon as 1994. "Long range, we're not going to save all these kids," he says. "Ten years from now, out of 15 kids, you'll have a couple hired by one of these corporations, two will be dead, two will be in the joint and two will move away. If we save one, then it's a success."

But for this year, at least, the league's concerns are pretty modest. There will be a few more players, a few more sponsors and more trips to Iowa, where Muzikowski has made arrangements with a summer camp that will allow league members to spend several weeks there each summer. There's also talk of expanding play to Seward Park Field. The reasons for the latter move, of course, have to do with the games that go beyond baseball: one gang recently outfought another gang for possession of the second of two buildings that flank the field, which should. Carter believes, cut down on the exchanges of gunfire across the grass.

Julio, at least for now, doesn't care about that. Just after the close of last season, his mother, sister, brother and he moved out of Cabrini, down to the South Side, where there isn't so much shooting. But Julio says his mother will be driving him to Carson Field so he can play first base for the Ibo.

"We're going to be good," he says, dropping into his stance and letting his big swing fly. "You watch us."