New Milwaukee baseball facility providing opportunities for youth
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The ribbon was cut Saturday morning, Jan. 11, on the Milwaukee Baseball Club's new facility along south 38th Street. Coaches and athletes say it’s a game changer.
"Milwaukee struggles, we only have three playable fields," said Julian Haliga, the president of the Milwaukee Baseball Club. "Baseball is dying in Milwaukee."
Haliga says safe facilities and a lack of resources are major challenges separating young athletes from success.
"There's kids that play high school baseball in the city who can't catch, can't throw and what our program does is give them year-round access to baseball to balance it," said Haliga.
Now, the Milwaukee Baseball Club's new facility is providing athletes with a practice space year-round, allowing them to expand their program and level the playing field.
"What we are going to do for these kids is open the door for them, show them through hard work anything is possible," said Haliga. "If you apply yourself at anything in life, you'll be able to get there."
The space goes beyond baseball, providing art classes, music production, computer labs and more to help set up students for success.
"We can always just come in here," said baseball player Mateo Manzanet. "We could either just work on batting, fielding and besides baseball we can just come here and do our schoolwork if we need any help."
This opening comes as the local baseball community mourns former Milwaukee Braves player, Felix Mantilla who died Friday. Mantilla worked hard to build up Milwaukee youth baseball, with a little league team in his namesake.
"He would be looking down today at this facility as a benchmark of the future, of the development of baseball and the baseball programming and for our youth locally with pride," said Eugene Manzanet, a Journey House board member.
The Milwaukee Baseball Club also serves as the home to the Milwaukee Brewers Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities, or RBI program and together they say they will keep working to bring baseball back to life in the city.