Macon Nike RBI 15U Team Returns to Southeastern Tournament After Breakout Year

This year's squad returns only one player, but may be heading back to Jacksonville with a better team than last season

MACON, Georgia – (41NBC/WMGT) – One year after a breakout run to the RBI World Series, the Macon Nike RBI 15U baseball team has returned to the Southeastern Regional Tournament with high hopes and even higher expectations.

The program, representing one of the smallest markets in the RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) initiative, made waves last season after capturing the Southeastern title and earning national attention, including a feature on MLB Network.

Now, the team is back in Jacksonville aiming to replicate that success, though with a mostly new roster and fresh momentum.

“It has drawn a lot of attention to our program,” said Freddie Stewart, president of Macon Nike RBI. “We’ve been getting a lot more kids involved, more kids wanting to be a part of the program. Success brings on kids.”

Stewart reflected on the life-changing opportunities last year brought the team.

“Going to Atlanta, getting on an airplane, flying to Vero Beach, having a limousine pick you up and take you to the Jackie Robinson complex, and house you, and feed you, and wash your clothes… Those are just unheard of things for a lot of the kids in this area,” Stewart said. “It’s giving kids a lot of opportunities… a chance to maybe go to college and play ball, and not only play ball, but get an education.”

Those opportunities have attracted the support of both families and sponsors, helping the program expand rapidly.

“Jeff Batcher has done a great job of communicating with a lot of corporations,” Stewart said. “They reached out to us and said, ‘What can we do to help you guys?’ We’re definitely encouraging other corporations to feel free to donate to us. We’re doing some good things with some kids.”

Michael Rogers, the team’s director of baseball operations, echoed Stewart’s sentiments and noted a strong turnout of new talent this year.

“We were able to pick up more kids than we picked up in the past, because they had the intention of playing with our programs this year,” Rogers said.

While last year’s team set a high bar, Stewart believes this year’s squad may have even more potential.

“We don’t have that many kids on the squad this year that were there last year, so we got a bunch of hungry kids,” he said. “Pound for pound, we might be a better ball club. It’s just a matter of whether or not we can gel together.”

Gelling starts with hard work, a central philosophy of the program.

“Everybody wants to win, but not everybody wants to do the work that it takes to win,” Stewart said. “Around here, our motto is: you got to put in the work.”

Rogers said the current team has made strides, showing improved pitching depth and strong offensive production.

“They’ve got a little bit more pitching depth than we had last year… The best part of this team is that they hit the ball,” Rogers said. “We went into a tournament this weekend as a tune-up. They scored 10 runs per game every single game.”

Returning from last year’s World Series team is 14-year-old all-star Kyle Howard of Rutland High School. Despite being the lone returning player, he’s confident in this group’s potential.

“We played very well together for it being our first time playing,” Howard said. “I’m really not worried about our team chemistry.”

Howard and Rogers agree that building chemistry off the field is key to their performance on it.

“Any kind of team-building exercise we can get in, it doesn’t have to be formal,” Rogers said. “We require that all the players ride the bus when we go down. That’s an opportunity for them to get to know one another… sitting down and eating with one another and just laughing and having a good time.”

Howard added, “It’s a lot of stuff to do outside of playing baseball… we’re just having fun with the team, well, new friends, really.”

As the tournament kicks off, both Howard and Rogers are optimistic.

“I’m expecting good competition,” Howard said. “But I think we can really pull through with our team.”

“Higher expectations this year,” Rogers said. “Certainly the teams we’re competing against now know to expect a little bit more from us than they’ve gotten in the past. That’s where we want to be; in the conversation of one of those teams that has what it takes to win at a higher level.”

Since its founding in 2019, the Macon Nike RBI program has expanded dramatically, from not having a field to now offering multiple baseball and softball divisions, including minor league and advanced teams.

The 15U team will begin tournament play with two games Friday and two more Saturday, with hopes of advancing to the championship game on Sunday.