Bonnie Youth Club Players Featured On Fox & Friends

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Hey Yankees! Maybe it’s time you should be coming to Church Avenue to recruit some new players.

Athletes from the Bonnie Youth Club (1221 Church Avenue) showed off their baseball talents on the television show Fox & Friends yesterday — and, after yesterday’s opening day loss, it looks like our neighborhood players could show A-Rod and his team a thing or two.

The children from the Bonnie Youth Club, an all-volunteer organization that annually attracts some 400 mostly economically disadvantaged youngsters, ages 5 to 21, were featured on the TV show’s segment titled, “Does the MLB need a makeover to attract younger fans?”

During the piece, Fox’s hosts interviewed Harold Reynolds, a former MLB All Star who played primarily for the Seattle Mariners and who’s now an MLB network analyst, about baseball’s graying audience — about half of baseball’s TV audience is 55 years and older.

“I think the main thing is action — we gotta get back to a lot more action… you go to a game, and it drags on,” Reynolds said just before introducing members from the Bonnie Youth Club and the Bronx-based New York Sluggers, who joined on neighbors on the set, as “some local little league stars.”

As for how the MLB plans to attract younger players?

“Baseball’s not in dire straits,” Reynolds said. “[MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s] initiative is youth baseball – he feels that if you get a kid playing at an early age… that’s a big thing.”

And the MLB said they want to further support groups like the Bonnie Youth Club and the New York Sluggers, which work with kids from a wide variety of backgrounds. The MLB recently reported that, “Manfred noted that the biggest determinant of somebody becoming an avid fan of baseball is to participate at the youth level, which is why baseball needs to continue to find ways to ensure kids from all socioeconomic backgrounds are given proper opportunity to play at a competitive level.”

To see more photos from the Bonnie Youth Club’s adventure on Monday, you can go to its Facebook page, and to find out more about the athletic group in general, you can visit its website.

And to the Bonnie Youth Club and its players, a big congratulations!