Oriole Advocates set annual Cardboard to Leather collection for Sunday, Sept. 4

If you're a little late on your spring cleaning, or if you're ready to thin out the baseball and softball equipment you've accumulated now that the youth seasons have ended, the Oriole Advocates have a great way for you to help those less fortunate enjoy a game we often take for granted.

The Advocates have scheduled their annual Cardboard to Leather collection for Sunday, Sept. 4 before the Orioles entertain the New York Yankees. Legg Mason sponsors this worthy event, one of the important ways the baseball-centric Advocates impact the national pastime - sometimes in countries far, far away.

Fans are encouraged to bring new or gently used baseball and softball equipment to the Sept. 4 game, where members of the Advocates will collect it at the entrance gates. The Advocates will then refurbish (if necessary) and pack the equipment and send it to youth baseball players in need in a foreign country. Since 1992, the Cardboard to Leather program has benefited youth players in countries like Afghanistan, Aruba, Belize, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua, Serbia and Venezuela (not to mention donations that are distributed throughout the United States).

In the past eight years alone, more than 50,000 children have been impacted internationally and domestically by the Cardboard to Leather program.

What do the Advocates need? Think basics - balls, gloves, bats, bases. If you have uniforms, they'll take those too. And if you don't have equipment to give, cash donations are always helpful and will be used toward shipping costs.

In a ceremony before the game, Legg Mason vice president of corporate social responsibility Jennifer Byers will present the Oriole Advocates Charitable Foundation with a $5,000 contribution for the Cardboard to Leather collection. In addition, the Baseball Tomorrow Fund will award a grant to the Oriole Advocates Charitable Foundation for the purchase of new equipment.

Cardboard to Leather is one of the Advocates' signature programs, and the group's members have traveled to personally deliver equipment in impoverished countries where children have no formal fields and often use whatever they can - a stick for a bat, a piece of cardboard for a glove, a tightly wound ball of tape for a baseball - to play the game.

Here is a video recap from last year's collection: