10 in 10: Nationals look to improve D.C. Little Leagues with new uniforms, equipment and fields

From the time they arrived from Montreal before the 2005 season, the Nationals have been a mainstay in the Washington, D.C., sports scene. But the Nats are also very active in the community, working diligently over the past decade to touch the lives of many in the region and proving that baseball has a further reach than wins and losses, balls and strikes, batters and pitchers. Each Thursday through mid-August, MASNsports.com's Byron Kerr will explore the Nationals' community outreach efforts, showing how far their reach has extended and how deeply committed to Washington, D.C., and the surrounding area the Nationals are.

The Nationals have made improving youth baseball in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area a top priority. The Nationals Youth Baseball Academy is the most well-known example of how the organization looks to build "positive character development, academic achievement and improved health among at-risk Washington, D.C., youth." We will have a closer look on how the Youth Baseball Academy is coming along in its second year later on in our "10 in 10" series.

The club has also stepped forward with an initiative this season to provide Little League baseball uniforms to D.C.-area youth baseball players. In March, the team donated baseball caps, T-shirts and jerseys to all D.C. Little League and D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation Rookie League players.

On May 23, manager Matt Williams, left-hander Gio Gonzalez and nine other Nationals players visited eight D.C. Little League to commemorate the uniform distribution and see how the teams were doing.

"This year we had almost 5,000 boys and girls in the District of Columbia and all eight Little Leagues plus the Department of Parks and Rec rookie league are wearing Nationals branded jerseys," said Gregory McCarthy, the Nationals' vice president of community engagement. "Because there are so many kids and teams, we have nine variations, so we actually have a Nationals pinstripes. So they all have a curly W and Nationals on it, but we have new colors and new designs."

McCarthy said the Nats were able to find several combinations for the uniforms that provided each team with a unique look.

"What we've learned from that is a lot of kids had no uniforms and a lot of kids had inferior uniforms," McCarthy said. "Different kids from different parts of the city would play. They would immediately start off being a little bit different, somebody's uniform was perhaps better. We've gotten great feedback that everybody has the same quality. They are high-quality, different colors. We have nine variations and three caps. There are 27 different permutations, so no teams actually play each other (in the same uniform). We have gotten great feedback in all of the leagues."

McCarthy said the Nationals also made sure the monies were used to help the teams improve their leagues if they already had uniforms to wear.

"For the leagues that already had uniforms, we said to them (that) we want documentation that we weren't supplanting money that you were raising," McCarthy said. "So if you no longer pay for uniforms, you have got to put that money back into your leagues."

McCarthy said while the Nationals were figuring out how to distribute the money to the Little Leagues, a special moment of giving occurred.

"We had all the Little Leagues together now every quarter for meetings and we had a $10,000 grant that we could give to a league and this kind of opened it up," McCarthy said. "And we thought this will be difficult and everyone will fight over it.

"And there was a new league that was kind of struggling and unanimously, all the other seven league presidents said, 'That league, lets give it to them.' They said to us (that) we never had a convening power that could kind of bring us all together and talk about that."

McCarthy said the Nationals wanted to begin their campaign to improve the Little League experience in D.C. with uniforms. But now they can tackle other issues facing the youth baseball teams in the city.

"We knew uniforms were important because we could do it quickly and we could reach every child equally in the district," McCarthy said. "The next steps would be to look at equipment, which again, (there are) varying needs across town, which is something we need to address."

The Nationals have also announced a new program that they will begin shortly: raising money to build better youth baseball fields in the district. That's something that the Nationals manager Matt Williams had success doing while with the Diamondbacks. Principal owner Marla Tanenbaum told us last week about how the new fields in D.C. will be the Washington Nationals Dream Foundation's new cornerstone program.

"The big one is fields, and that is a passion of Matt Williams," McCarthy said. "He feels strongly about that. Matt's playing an integral role in that."