Category: Fathers

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Fathers

Baseball

On a sunny day in Inglewood, former MLB catcher Carl Nichols, offers some insight to a father and son about the game of baseball. While Jackie Robinson broke major league baseball’s color line, it is reported that less than 10% of today’s active players are black.

Of additional interest is the fact that during its heyday, the Negro Leagues, the black-owned and operated that existed before major league baseball allowed non-white players, drew crowds that outnumbered all other leagues. There is, however, an effort to increase the number of black players playing little league, high school, college and professional baseball. We discovered one such example in Inglewood.

 

There is a great book , Shades of Glory : The Negro Leagues & the Story of African-American Baseball – that chronicles the history of black men, and women, and their relationship with baseball.

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Fathers

Corey Smyth is Capturing Life’s Moments

Corey Smyth wears his uncle’s wedding ring on his hand for a good reason. Growing up without his father, Corey’s uncle provided him with a living example of what it meant to be a man. Since that time Corey has built a career in music; working with Dave Chappelle as music supervisor on the critically acclaimed Chapelle Show; and managing artists ranging from De La Soul, Mos Def and Kweli Talib, to Vince Staples.

His career has taken him all around the world. Traveling among the stars can easily make one jaded, but through the birth of his daughter, Nyla, Corey has discovered a passion and greater appreciation for capturing life’s purest moments.

 

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Fathers

Baltimore Uprising: Finding the Humanity in Others

My name is Jermaine and I’m the father of two; my 12 year-old daughter and my 5 year-old son. My marriage to their mother is important to me because I find parenting requires a certain balance and teamwork that’s not always gender specific. Each of us holds the ingredients to our children’s success.

As it relates to me, the events that followed the death of Freddie Gray and the efforts of the 300 Men March against violence provide a platform to look at both issues, but it’s the anti-violence part that really touches me because I grew up surrounded by violence in Baltimore. That violence never hit home until it claimed my two younger brothers, who were murdered three years apart in Baltimore City. We’re on the corner of Park Heights and Cold Spring which is even more symbolic, because it’s the neighborhood my brothers and I grew up in.

I don’t live in the city anymore, but when we visit my daughter, in particular, is curious about the difference between the suburbs and the city. Our trips to Baltimore allow me to explain the importance of the company they keep, and people they associate with. No matter where you live, it’s important to always treat people with respect and to not be neighborhood or socioeconomic-centric. Most of all our visits prevent them from being naïve about what’s happening in the world beyond our neighborhood. I never want my kids to think living outside of the City of Baltimore makes them better than others, or to lead them to imagine other people don’t exist.

When I look at the closure of libraries and recreational centers, I realize it increases the number of unattended and misdirected kids on the city’s streets.  So I plan on being part of the solution by engaging those youth impacted.  We could live in a house on the hill, with no neighbors for miles, but we can never lose site of what we can do for the kids who may go hungry at night and struggle every day in the cities we come from.

As a father I want my children to see themselves, value, and humanity in the lives others.