{"id":660013,"date":"2026-04-03T02:13:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T02:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/660013\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T02:13:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T02:13:55","slug":"how-the-cleveland-guardians-are-shaping-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/660013\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Cleveland Guardians are shaping the future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/guardians\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Cleveland Guardians\u2019<\/a> impact on the community goes beyond the games at Progressive Field. Director of Community Impact Raphael Collins oversees 40 programs that touch about 40,000 youth throughout Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. The programs are for those as young as 10-years-old through college age.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what your skill level is, what your gender and what language you speak, we have an offering, if you want to play baseball or softball we have a program that you can play today for free in a community nearby you,\u201d said Collins.<\/p>\n<p>            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775182427_88_.jpeg\" alt=\"Cleveland Guardians RBI\"  width=\"1280\" height=\"854\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Cleveland Guardians<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s worked for the Guardians for 16 years in a variety of roles. He attributes part of his success to involvement in one of those programs.<\/p>\n<p>            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775182430_898_.jpeg\" alt=\"Raphael Collins Left.jpeg\"  width=\"1241\" height=\"1440\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Raphael Collins<\/p>\n<p>        Raphael Collins (Left)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me growing up in the City of Cleveland, honestly, RBI was my first exposure in team sports outside of my neighborhood,\u201d said Collins. \u201cWe all needed these programs they kept us outside; they kept us active, physical play bit it also taught us life skills that we didn\u2019t even understand at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Collins said he sees portions of himself in every kid the organization serves. Leon Jones is one of them. The 19-year-old is the Larry Doby intern this season. He\u2019s a sophomore at Kent State University.<\/p>\n<p>            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775182434_587_.jpeg\" alt=\"Leon Jones.jpeg\"  width=\"960\" height=\"1440\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Leon Jones<\/p>\n<p>        Leon Jones<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was 16 years old when I got into the RBI program and then by the time I finished, I had just turned 18,\u201d said Jones. &#8220;Just seeing all the coaches and all the staff being there, I never would have thought that I would have the opportunity to be on the other side of that\u2026 [and] hopefully being able to interact with kids, kids my age back then, and just help them get to where I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jones called it a full-circle moment that means a lot to him. <\/p>\n<p>To learn more about all Cleveland Guardians youth baseball, softball, and adaptive programs, visit <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/guardians\/fans\/kids\/youth-baseball\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cleguardians.com\/youthbaseball<\/a><\/p>\n<p>            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775182435_762_.jpeg\" alt=\"Leon Soft.jpg\"  width=\"1280\" height=\"853\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Cleveland Guardians<\/p>\n<p>We Follow Through<\/p>\n<p>Want us to continue to follow through on a story? Let us know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Guardians\u2019 impact on the community goes beyond the games at Progressive Field. Director of Community Impact&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,2565,538,7316,84195,4,24271,24272,667,84193,84194,4889,38359],"class_list":{"0":"post-660013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-guardians","11":"tag-clevelandguardians","12":"tag-guardians","13":"tag-kent-state-university","14":"tag-larry-doby-intern","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-news5cleveland","17":"tag-northeast-ohio-news","18":"tag-progressive-field","19":"tag-raphael-collins","20":"tag-rbi-program","21":"tag-youth-baseball","22":"tag-youth-softball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116338365761912469","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}