Oriole Advocates Supporting "Field of Dreams" in Kenya

The Oriole Advocates Charitable Foundation (OACF) and the Oriole Advocates Cardboard to Leather (OA C2L) program are providing gently used personal baseball and softball equipment and field support equipment (e.g., bases, netting, maintenance tools) to the “Nairobi Field of Dreams Project” in Kenya, an initiative of the 501(c)3 organization IfWeBuildIt.org.

The Nairobi Field of Dreams project is working to build the first baseball field in the capital city near where most of the baseball and softball players live. When completed, it will be a hub for regional baseball and softball as the first multi-field complex in sub-Saharan Africa, outside of South Africa. The two-field complex, to be built on ten acres of donated farmland in collaboration with the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, will include a regulation-sized baseball field and a second hybrid softball/Little League field – with a capability to host both local and international competitions.

According to the organization’s Nairobi-based co-founder (and Baltimore native), Thom Wallace, the popularity of baseball and softball have risen over the past two decades, but there is currently only one regulation baseball field in Kenya – over six hours away in a hard-to-reach rural area. Wallace also notes that players not only need a real field under their feet, but also the shoes and equipment needed for the basics. Younger players frequently show up “with the only shoes they have, Crocs, or opt to play in their bare feet. It’s their love of the game and grit that fuels our passion; we simply want to build a field for young ballplayers to play the game they love. Yes, the saying is true, if we build it people will come. More importantly we say, if we build it, kids will play.”

The organization has already established a basic field which has hosted various national and international competitions, including Kenya’s Little League Championship in 2023. The field has served over 1,500 youth in its first two years. In the first half of 2024, the organization launched and hosted the country’s first senior baseball league, the Nairobi Baseball Community Championship Series.

In September, thanks to a donation from the Oriole Advocates, permanent bases will be used in the first-ever Nairobi Community Championship game.

Later this year, the partnership between IfWeBuildIt.org and OACF will help send a “Field in a Box” shipping container from the Port of Baltimore to Mombasa, Kenya, and overland from there to Nairobi’s Field of Dreams. This initiative goes far beyond the normal OA C2L distribution of gently-used personal equipment and has a larger wish list that includes portable pitching mounds, rakes, drag mats, among other things – including direct financial donations.

Coincidentally, the OA C2L program is hosting an equipment collection on Sunday, August 18, at Camden Yards. You can deposit your gently used equipment at stations set up near every open entry gate for the ballpark. Financial contributions, used to defray the costs of storing and shipping the equipment, can be made online or at the ballpark.

Cardboard to Leather was inspired in 1992 by a John Eisenberg article in “The Baltimore Sun” about kids in the Dominican Republic using tree limbs for bats and making gloves out of cardboard boxes and tape. Since then, the Oriole Advocates’ Cardboard to Leather program has distributed over 100 tons of equipment to baseball organizations run by schools, orphanages, community groups, hospitals, and other civic organizations. Recipients have included baseball supporting organizations in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Kenya, Rwanda, Aruba, Nicaragua, and elsewhere. Besides annual events at Camden Yards, the Oriole Advocates will coordinate equipment collections at other locations on request.

“Cardboard to Leather” is a registered trademark of The Oriole Advocates, Inc., an organization dedicated to promoting and stimulating interest in baseball/softball in the Baltimore Metropolitan Area and around the world.