(Courtesy of Curtis Banks)

(Courtesy of Curtis Banks)

The Mamie Johnson Little League Team—so named for Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, Washingtonian and the first female pitcher to play in the Negro leagues—captured hearts last month when they beat Capitol Hill 14-7 to take home the D.C. Little League Championship.

Now, that team is raising money to help out with the next step: the regional tournament in Bristol, Connecticut starting Saturday.

“My heart, it’s never been fuller than it was last night,” Charlie Sperduto, the director of the baseball and softball programs at the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy, told the Washington Post the day after the win. The team’s triumph was covered extensively by local press, and for good reason: it’s the first time in 31 years that a nearly all African-American team has won D.C.’s Little League Championship.

Shortly after their win, the team put up a donation page hoping to raise at least $10,000 to help with the travel and lodging expenses on the trip to Bristol. By the end of the day Wednesday, the team had raised $15,000 from about 200 donors, ensuring they could make their way to the tournament.

“It can cost up to $8,600 just to charter a bus, so most of the money is going just to charter the bus,” says Keith Barnes, the president of Mamie Johnson Little League. The rest of the money will go to helping families with lodging in Bristol, Barnes adds.

If there’s anything leftover after that, Barnes says the team will use it to help run the league, buying supplies for the kids like gloves, bats, and balls, and playing for some of the costs of operation, like insurance.

Barnes says his team is unique in that they only charge participating kids $20 to register, while other teams in the District can charge families more than $200. Mamie Johnson has managed to avoid charging so much by raising money through fundraisers; last year, the team got a grant from 7-11 and they’ve also held an annual hit-a-thon to raise money, Barnes says.

Part of the reason Mamie Johnson Little League’s win has captured so much attention is because it’s a relatively new league that serves Ward 8, where baseball has historically not been a popular sport among kids.

“In that side of town, predominantly it’s football and basketball. So, right now, we’re starting to get that baseball push over there,” Curtis Banks, the team’s coach, said on the Kojo Nnamdi show Monday. “Now they’re into it, I can’t get them off the field now.”

Baseball’s lack of diversity and low popularity among black youth has been front and center in recent discussions about the future of the sport. Mamie Johnson’s coaches and organizers are hoping this win will help shift the tide in D.C.

“We’ve had young kids already come up, parents already come up, from 5 to 7 years old saying, ‘I want to be that team. What can we do? Where’s the league sign-up? How can we play?’,” Raphael Lockett, one of the team’s other coaches, told the Washington Post.

If Mamie Johnson does well at regionals this weekend, things could get even more exciting: the Little League World Series is the next step.

Barnes says the fundraiser for Bristol will close when the team is home from the tournament, and he plans to put up another fundraiser for people who want to donate to help the league throughout the season.

“Any money donated, it’ll just help more kids play baseball,” Barnes says.

This post has been updated to reflect that the team is nearly all African American, rather than an all-black team.

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