John Young, founder of MLB program Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities, has died

John Young, who grew up in Los Angeles, played on a national championship baseball team at Chapman University and was the founder of Major League Baseball’s Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities program, has died, the commissioner’s office announced on Monday. He was 67.

Bob Zamora, the coach at Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley who was a high school and college teammate of Young at Mt. Carmel in Los Angeles and Chapman, said Young had diabetes and had been hospitalized in Orange County before passing away on Sunday.

“He was a great man,” Zamora said.

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Baseball Commissioner Robert D. Manfred Jr. said in a statement: “All of us at Major League Baseball are saddened by the loss of John Young, a trailblazer and champion of both professional and youth baseball. Following a championship collegiate baseball career and a Minor and Major League playing career that spanned from 1969 through 1978, John became the first African-American director of scouting when he was hired by the Detroit Tigers in 1981.

“He went on to scout for several clubs, including the Marlins, Rangers, Padres and Cubs, signing 21 future Major Leaguers to their first professional contracts. It was in this capacity that he would achieve his most enduring accomplishment — the founding of the RBI program.

“John personally started RBI in 1989 in his home city of Los Angeles with less than 200 young men. With John’s guidance, MLB assumed the operations of the program in 1991, and it has since grown to serve 230,000 young men and women in 200 cities across the United States, Canada, Curacao, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

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“The legacy John has left with the RBI program is evident in the impact it has had on young people who have grown to be important contributors to our society as teachers, police officers, doctors, youth coaches and as professional baseball players.”

Young was a member of Chapman’s 1968 national championship team.

Young is survived by his wife, Sheryl, and children Dorian, Jon and Tori.

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