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D-backs bring taste of Chase Field to youth league
- Updated: May 14, 2016
PHOENIX — It’s only a 4-mile drive down Seventh Street from Chase Field and the lofty heights of Major League Baseball to the Roosevelt School District’s headquarters in an econically disadvantaged area, but the Arizona Diamondbacks want children to know that playing ball can be part of their road to success.
The D-backs gave children a strong dose of encouragement Saturday when they brought the trappings of the Chase Field experience, dubbed a “Chase Field Takeover,” to the South Mountain Little League’s championship game.
A good crowd that turned out for the last game of South Mountain’s season was treated to performances by the “Rally Back” cheerleaders, public-address announcer Chuck Drago, mascot Baxter the Bobcat and longtime team organist Bobby Freeman.
Relief pitchers Jake Barrett and Randall Delgado added to the dazzle by posing for photos with children behind the backstop and serving as celebrity assistant coaches. The only things missing were the retractable roof and the pool behind the right-field fence, two unique features that would have been popular on another hot Phoenix day.
It’s all part of Play Ball Weekend, an extension of the Play Ball initiative, which launched in 2015 as the sport’s largest effort to encourage widespread participation in both formal and casual baseball and softball activities.
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The Rattlers topped the Firebirds, 7-4, but the only way to tell the two teams apart was that the Rattlers wore white pinstriped uniforms while the Firebirds wore the black uniforms the MLB D-backs typically wear for Saturday home games.
That’s because the D-backs this year gave away replica baseball hats, T-shirts and jerseys to 40,000 children throughout Arizona who play in 75 different leagues, with 60 of them picked because they are in disadvantaged areas.
“They are all D-backs,” said Tara Trzinski, who works in community outreach for the team. “It’s growing new D-backs fans. That’s what we want. It also supplies financial relief.”
The uniform distribution dovetails with the “Diamonds Back” program, in which the team has built or refurbished 36 baseball and softball fields, mostly in disadvantaged areas, since 2000 at a cost of nearly $11 …
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