Play Ball brings baseball to Texas kids

Major League Baseball and USA Softball recently hosted a Play Ball event to mark the culmination of the USA Women’s National Team’s pre-Olympic “Stand Beside Her Tour,” presented by MLB.

Taking place on June 19 and 20 at Constellation Field in Sugar Land, Texas -- the home of the Houston Astros’ Triple-A affiliate, the Sugar Land Skeeters -- the event featured several stations centered on various baseball activities, including a home run derby, baserunning drills, and hitting and fielding activities.

“We are excited to be able to bring Play Ball back to softball, just in general. With COVID-19, there was not a lot of opportunity to get kids out there and introduced to the game,” said Destinee Martinez, Managing Director of Sport Development for USA Softball and a 2013 NCAA Women’s College World Series champion with University of Oklahoma.

The event featured several members of Houston’s Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities program. The RBI program is a youth outreach program primarily focused on increasing participation in baseball and softball among underserved youth and communities.

“The Play Ball event is really just to introduce kids to the sport, give them a good time and encourage them to play, and with the opportunity that the Skeeters gave us, we wanted to capitalize on it and bring kids out,” Martinez said.

“We find it very, very important for us to do this," said Craig Cress, CEO of USA Softball. "We’re just happy that some cities will allow us to come and be a part of it, so thank you to the city of Sugar Land for letting us be here.”

The Stand Beside Her Tour is a series of competitions for the USA Softball Women’s National Team while the team prepares for the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games. The tour is also aimed toward increasing the support and fandom ahead of the WNT bid for the gold.

“We’re really excited about our partnership with USA Softball in regards to promoting bat and ball sports,” said David James, MLB’s VP of Baseball and Softball Development. “Obviously, we are committed to supporting the Women’s National Team as they head to Japan and compete in the Olympics. But we have an overall goal of making sure everyone who wants to play either baseball or softball has that opportunity.”

Over the two-day event, MLB hosted four games between Team USA and Team Alliance, which is comprised of collegiate all-stars and professionals. The WNT won three out of four games.

Softball was eliminated from the Olympics after the 2008 Beijing games, but is set to return this summer. The United States won gold in 1996, 2000 and 2004, the first three years that softball was featured in the Olympics, and took home the silver in 2008. The 2021 Games, which were pushed back a year due to COVID, begin on July 23.