How a baseball organization from New York brought joy to Ukrainian refugees

The children came to ballfields, parks and soccer fields in Warsaw and Kutno from across Europe. They were mostly from Ukraine -- with some from Lithuania, Estonia and beyond -- but all had been affected by the war currently raging across Eastern Europe and were now living as refugees inside Poland. They may not have shared a language, a homeland or have had any history with baseball, but it didn't matter.

They were outside, they were playing and they were having fun.

"I can't believe how much joy they experienced playing a game that they'd never played before," Jordan Baltimore, CEO of New York Empire Baseball told MLB.com after returning from Poland recently. "The language barrier, which we thought was going to be a disaster -- and don't get me wrong, it was challenging, even with translators -- but the language barrier went away when you were just playing a game. It just didn't matter."

There were bigger questions to answer than simply how to teach baseball, though.

"How do we go engage with children, particularly the Ukrainian ones, who are refugees?" Baltimore asked, his words coming out choked as he fought back tears. "They're all living in a hotel. Most of them have a single parent, because dad is home either fighting in the war, or unfortunately [having passed away]. They're strangers in a strange land."

This was New York Empire Baseball's second trip to help with Ukrainian orphans now living in Poland. The first trip took place two years ago, put together with a wish and on a whim. The organization, which offers instruction and teams for all skill levels, travel ball for advanced players and performance training for its most promising athletes, had recently launched a 501(c)3 charitable organization to help further local initiatives. They hosted $1-a-day baseball camps in Harlem and teamed up with Louisville Slugger to donate 1,000 bats to children throughout the city.

But Baltimore wanted to do more, which meant going beyond the borders of New York. So, when the war in Ukraine started, Baltimore looked to see how the organization could donate to those in need. With some help from cookbook author and GOOD+ Foundation leader Jessica Seinfeld (she's also married to comedian Jerry Seinfeld, and the two have children enrolled in New York Empire's programs), Baltimore got in touch with a cooking school in Poland and offered to help. It would be for one day, with a small baseball camp and an offer to help donate supplies.

For all that work simply getting to Poland, they asked, why not do more?

So, with baseball executive Sandy Alderson and the U.S. State Department also on board, the trip was expanded. Baseball, though, was simply a bonus.

"Our original trip was very humanitarian based and was focused solely on the orphans," Baltimore explained. "The story back then was that 10 orphanages from Ukraine were consolidated into one outside of Warsaw. That was the focus of our original trip -- and they had never played baseball or done anything like that. So, we went and cooked and cleaned and served food. And then, taught baseball with a few hundred children who have no families. It's been on our mind ever since to go back."

After two years of waiting, Baltimore and the New York Empire Baseball Team were finally able to return. This time, with help from U.S. Ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski, baseball was part of the humanitarian mission.

"[The State Department] felt that it would be a wonderful outreach for Polish and Ukrainian children in the community for us to be there," Baltimore explained. "There we were, when the ambassador shows up and starts coaching baseball right alongside us. He insisted on being hands on and he started playing with the kids and actually participating in the drills. It wasn't a photo op, it was, 'Yeah, I want to do this.'

The organization brought baseball equipment, ordering online what couldn't be stuffed into equipment bags brought from America. They had New York Empire Baseball caps in different colors -- red and white for Poland, blue and yellow for Ukraine -- for the children to wear. And the days involved teaching the very basics of baseball.

"The way we typically teach the game is what we call 'The games within the game,'" Baltimore said. "First, you have to learn how to run the bases and why. Then you learn how to catch and throw. Then you learn that there's first base, second base, third base and home."

They can then jump in with "The First Base Game," where a player has to run to first base before the other team catches a ball and makes the throw. It is about taking the larger concepts of baseball and distilling them down into fun and digestible ways to get the kids out on the field and moving around.

"One of the things we noticed was there was very little fear of failure. It was, 'Hey, I'm going to run as fast as I can,' 'I'm going to swing as hard as I can,'" Baltimore observed. "For the kids who were embarrassed when they couldn't do well, one of the life lessons that we kept sharing over and over -- through a wonderful translator -- was that it's OK to make mistakes. You don't have to worry about being judged. It's what you do after the mistake that counts. That's true in baseball. It's true in life."

The magic wasn't in creating new ballplayers or Major League fans. It was simply helping bring joy to these young lives.

"There were some moments, especially on the first day, that kind of hit like a ton of bricks. Like, when a kid would come up to you and just give you a hug, and you don't even know why," 19-year-old Julian Malenda, a special assistant to Baltimore, said. Malenda will be heading to Baruch College this fall, but the experience in Poland has already changed him before he ever sets foot on campus.

"You realize it's the opportunity to just play and have fun and enjoy a game. It doesn't matter what game it is, it's just that moment for them, how much it means. It showed me how much it meant, like, 'Wow, they're so appreciative of the time to enjoy baseball,'" Malenda said.

Back in New York, Baltimore already is thinking of what he can do next time -- how they can reach more young children and hopefully inject a little hope and fun into their lives.

"Baseball is a medium for joy," Baltimore added. "It's a medium for learning life lessons. Everybody always talks about how baseball is a metaphor for life and that's right. You can't control the outcomes. You can only control yourself and the inputs and believe that good things will happen over time. You're going to fail, and you can pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and there are going to be bad things that happen. The joy and life lessons were the goal, and baseball was a medium, because that's what we do."

"It was very, very eye opening," Malenda said. "To think that baseball can have that impact. It really opens doors for myself, like, 'What can I do with my life and my future to have that impact?' Your life doesn't have to be just a job and a family, but you can go have an impact on people. Whatever the impact may be, big or small, you can go and try to positively change someone's life with baseball or not with baseball."