CHARLESTON, W.V.a. — The Charleston Dirty Birds will soon be hosting its fifth straight installment of African American Heritage Night at GoMart Ballpark.
The Dirty Birds will host the celebration next Monday, August 5, and Tuesday, August 6. The two-day event will feature a Monday reception where Roberto Clemente Jr., son of Major League Baseball Hall of Fame member Roberto Clemente, will speak. The Monday portion of the event will be sponsored by the Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau, and James Beard Award-winning Chef Paul Smith will do the cooking.
Tuesday will highlight a nationally known dancer as Kida the Great will perform before the Dirty Birds welcome the Lexington Legends into town. Gates will open on Tuesday at 5 o’clock, and a pre-game showtime is set for 5:30, with a number of performers taking the field before Kida the Great begins.
Charleston Dirty Birds owner Andy Shea says this will be a big two days, but the planning process for the event spanned across the year.
“These two days are a gigantic celebration, and kind of an explanation point, but it is 365 days, on the field, off the field, in the community, pertaining to baseball, not baseball, so it is a gigantic mission of ours,” Shea said Monday afternoon.
In addition to the performances and speeches, several Dirty Birds players and manager P.J. Phillips will be leading a baseball clinic to introduce the game to the youth of Charleston. The YWCA Charleston will sponsor the clinic and is purchasing a baseball glove for each participant.
Shea says he loves that kids will get introduced to the game and see how people have made a living in baseball.
“I love that people and kids get a chance to see these guys that are playing professional baseball, that have played in the big leagues, that have played in AAA, that have made a great career and living from it, that they did it through baseball,” Shea said.
Shea also said that he had spent a multitude of years in the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and in that time, he saw a couple of reasons why some youth in the African American community didn’t fall in love with the game of baseball.
“I think that accessibility and introduction to it was certainly part of it, but I also think a gigantic part of it was that the guy next to them wasn’t playing,” Shea said. “The older cousin didn’t play, the older brother didn’t play, so then they didn’t play.”
Shea said that Charleston took a big step forward in bringing kids across the city to the knowledge of baseball with nice, accessible fields.
“I think as a community, we took a major step forward, in terms of all the artificial turf fields that are within Charleston now because accessibility is a giant one,” Shea said. “Being able to have these artificial turf fields that are very accessible and that are useable pretty much 24/7, 365, that is a gigantic step.”
Charleston Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin was on hand for the conference announcing the 5th African American Heritage Night and says the team’s outreach for the youth in the community is why she always supports these events.
“Every single thing that this ballpark is now doing is centered around children,” Goodwin said. “That’s why I’m always in.”
Jennifer Pharr, a Charleston City Council member and early supporter of the team’s African American Hertiage Night, says baseball is for everybody.
“Baseball is important to everyone,” Pharr said. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re red, green, purple, black, or with pink polka dots. It matters to everybody.”