Baseball is slowly disappearing from the black community.:

So the major leagues are hoping to reach kids before they decide the sport is fatally uncool. The Compton Youth Baseball Academy in suburban Los Angeles is one such overture, a duplication of the scouting camps found in the Dominican Republic. It offers spring-training-caliber facilities and major league instruction, free to any kid interested. Compton may be one of America’s most notorious ghettos, but it’s also proved a fertile gestation ground for many a major leaguer. “The Compton area produced, per capita, as many major leaguers as any city in America,” says former Angel Darrell Miller, who runs the complex. “Baseball was what was king in Compton for so many years.”

The Academy has programs in umpiring, groundskeeping, and even baseball journalism — other areas where blacks are few. The two-year-old campus attracts more than 2,000 players a year — proof that if the bribe is shiny enough, kids will come back. And, says major league Vice President Jimmie Lee Solomon, there’s a simpler lure: “Darrell Miller’s program in Compton is successful in Compton because of Darrell Miller. What those kids really want is a male mentor.”

It seems that if baseball wants to reintroduce black kids to the sport, it’ll have to do more than teach them to turn the double play. It will have to replace a generation of AWOL dads.

“We’ve been approached, more times than not, to talk to Timmy about his grades or there’s a problem with his math teacher or he’s on the peripheral of a gang,” says Miller of his coaching staff. “We’re filling that gap. We’re not trained, but we care.”

At this moment, you wouldn’t realize that C.C. Sabathia is unknown among black youth. As he sidles into a Parma bowling alley, kids swarm him. Those not in position for a quick handshake work frantic little brown fingers to Sabathia’s shoulder, settling for a momentary tug of his blue-and-red Jordan jacket. The friends accompanying him — teammates Casey Blake, Jamey Carroll, and Kelly Shoppach — meander, almost unnoticed, away from the fray.

This is C.C.’s Slugger Sleepover, a Saturday-night party for some of Cleveland’s unluckiest kids — among them project dwellers, wards of the state, and the homeless. Sabathia will bowl a few frames, make a surprisingly inspirational speech about how he lifted himself from a similar upbringing, and patiently autograph posters for more than an hour. He doesn’t leave until after midnight — despite having to pitch that afternoon at 1:05 against the Yankees.

“C.C. is that dude,” summarizes 14-year-old Chris from a Cleveland shelter, who bought a $9 camera from CVS for the occasion.

This is Sabathia embracing the “role model” responsibility so many athletes shrug away. His theme of the speech — and of the night — was be me.

But despite the adulation and the high-pitched squeals, it seems unlikely that these kids will follow that advice. Chris can’t say what position Sabathia plays. And he’s only played baseball two or three times in his life. But, he stipulates reassuringly, “I play kickball though.”