Organization helps Black boys in Atlanta break cycles of poverty, incarceration through baseball

ATLANTA — C.J. Stewart has spent more than a decade hosting high school baseball team tryouts in his former Atlanta neighborhood every spring. But the players chosen are not for an ordinary team. They are students handpicked by Stewart and his wife, Kelli Stewart, with a goal that extends far beyond winning on the field.

The team is part of an organization called Launch, Expose, Advise, Direct, or L.E.A.D., which aims to help Black boys in low-income households break out of the cycle of poverty and incarceration in their neighborhoods through the game of baseball.

Stewart, 44, knows about their neighborhoods because he is a product of them. He grew up in inner-city Atlanta and his love of baseball gave him a reason to stay out of trouble, he said.

“[Baseball] was the goal. It was my reason for living. It was my reason to say no to drugs,” Stewart said. “It was the tip of the spear for me for everything.”

Stewart went on to play baseball for Georgia State University and then played professionally for the Chicago Cubs organization. He’s now a successful batting coach who has developed some of the game’s top professional players such as the Cubs’ Jason Heyward and St. Louis Cardinals’ Dexter Fowler.

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