Before the first pitch is thrown, Tyrone Young arrives early to the baseball field at Hunting Park to pick up trash in both dugouts where teenagers gather to play in North Philadelphia’s Heritage Baseball League.

The trash is what he can control. What he can’t fix are the deep holes on the base paths that make it nearly impossible to play when it rains. He believes race has something to do with the condition of his field.

“Certain fields you might go in the Northeast … their fields are immaculate, but why do ours not look like that?” said Young, who founded the league in 2008.

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