Reds' Castellini helps provide framework for highlighting community successes

Baseball as a means of facilitating and highlighting meaningful community progress in Cincinnati – it's a goal Cincinnati Reds Chief Operating Officer Phil Castellini is chasing.

Some around baseball are noticing Castellini's goal, and the outcomes he's achieving with other local community leaders in the Queen City.

Castellini and numerous community leaders from around Greater Cincinnati made more strides toward their goals Wednesday night during the Black History Month Community Forum on Economics held at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

There, a conversation that first began during last summer's All-Star Game festivities carried on. Hundreds attended the Wednesday panel discussion on economic development in local African American communities, as well as the networking event held beforehand.

Speakers at Wednesday's event included Cincinnati Councilwoman Yvette Simpson, Iris Roley, president of DeFuze It, Sean Rugless, president & CEO of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky African American Chamber of Commerce, and Rev. Damon Lynch III, pastor at New Prospect Baptist Church in Roselawn.

At one point, Simpson had attendees chanting in unison: "Black business matters."

Wednesday's event was born of a clash between opposing groups of protesters outside Great American Ball Park last summer, many in attendance agreed.

Major League Baseball's 2015 All-Star Game and its related events were always going to be a platform to discuss issues confronting Cincinnatians. Castellini supported using the All-Star festivities as a chance to have those conversations. He welcomed it, in fact, said Roley during her remarks.

But Castellini wasn't going to have opposing groups, some of which included white supremacists, shouting each other down outside Great American Ball Park, as was the case during a May 21 protest.

In an effort to provide a proper forum for these necessary community discussions, Castellini helped bring together the community leaders for a program entitled: “All Lives Matter: A Social Justice Dialogue of Faith, Community and Baseball.”

That diversity summit was held during All-Star Week at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, but the parties involved in the original summit and others convened again Wednesday to further their efforts.

The work is being noticed around baseball, and has been presented to other MLB cities as a means of possible community outreach, Castellini said.

"We all agree the Freedom Center is the place to keep convening this meetings," Castellini said. "Right now, I'd say it's more of a framework, but as we continue to make progress, I think it becomes something more and more that you can show to other teams as a way to use baseball as a way to convene and celebrate the work going on in individual communities"