Black coaches and players say Kansas City Royals’ academy to grow local talent has lost its way

The Urban Youth Academy would have been an ideal place for his all-African American team, the Kansas City Expos, to train for its demanding travel schedule that included tournaments outside the local program.

“I had a team,” said Hall. “We didn’t get to practice down there.”

The Urban Youth Academy facility, owned by the Kansas City Royals, was completed in 2018 just off the main drag of Kansas City’s most historic Black neighborhood.

Hall said, whenever he tried to arrange practice there, he’d go through the application process but was always told the fields were booked.

Then, he and others would see teams from outlying areas practicing there.

“It’s not for the African Americans in the inner-city. For baseball, it’s more for people out in Johnson County and kids that have money,” said Hall, whose son Allante went on to play catcher in the Minnesota Twins system after his time with the Expos.

“There’s others that do feel the same way, that it wasn’t really designed for the urban kids,” he said.