The new season will officially kick off on
May 17 with a great deal of fanfare. HBO will film the event, Sinbad will host,
and players will fan out on a newly refurbished field, paid for with community
donations.
This is baseball season at San Quentin State
Prison—home to 5,796 inmates, a few dozen of whom have earned the privilege of
playing on the prison’s two teams. On opening day, the San Quentin Giants—so
named because they wear the San Francisco Giants’ old spring training
uniforms—will go up against a “free” team from a community league.
For the uninitiated, a baseball game at San
Quentin can be a bit intimidating. The cheering fans are inmates and the first
greeting is a warning.
“Gentlemen, welcome to San Quentin,” a guard
tells all visitors. “We have a no hostage policy here, which means we will not
bargain for your safety for the freedom of an inmate, but they will do
everything they can to get us out safe and sound. And with that, welcome to San
Quentin.”
Despite the location, coach
Kent Philpott said they have no problem fielding
“outside” teams against the San Quentin Giants as well as a second inmate team
that is starting up this season, “The Pirates”. The inmates play against two
age-based Bay Area leagues, known as the “Wood League” and the “Aluminum
League”. In fact, much of the $20,000 needed to refurbish the San Quentin
baseball field came from the fundraising efforts of the visiting players.
Inmate enrichment programs at the legendary
San Quentin prison, which is also home to the 608 men on
San Quentin chaplain Earl Smith started the
current baseball program nine years ago. Two years later, Philpott
volunteered his time to become the teams’ coach. Season by season, the
all-volunteer program has grown, reaching a pinnacle this year with the
refurbishing of the field and a new scoreboard, built by inmates.
The success of the San Quentin baseball
program has drawn favorable attention from the media as television cameras
recording the opening game will undoubtedly draw in a much larger audience than
non-playing inmates.
This publicity, however, comes at a price. Philpott knows from experience that public reaction can
often be hostile.
“Some people say you are coddling the
convicts. When we’ve had media attention, I get phone calls, angry phone
calls,” Philpott said. “My response is, yeah, it is a
privilege. It is a good thing. But, my interest is in building these guys up because they are going to get out, and what’s going to
happen then. My view is it’s a benefit to those guys.”