New Seattle semi-pro league takes a swing at baseball's lack of diversity

Good news, sports fans. Seattle is about to get more baseball. This summer the GOOD Neighbor League was announced, a plan for eight semi-professional teams focused in southeast Seattle neighborhoods.

Juan Cotto says baseball has a diversity problem. Too few Black and brown students go out for the sport, he said.

“Baseball is a wonderful sport,” Cotto told KUOW. “We love it, but it may be out of price for certain communities.”

So starting next year, Cotto, president and CEO of the league, plans to launch about a half dozen semi-pro ball clubs around Seattle, “to foster opportunities for minorities and revitalizing neighborhood parks.”

He says they plan to build micro-stadiums in town with room for about a thousand fans each. Cotto wants the stadiums to feel like neighborhood ballparks, each unique to their surroundings. Cotto says the league is working with sponsors now to build up both the parks and the teams.

If you’re an aspiring ballplayer in Seattle, this could be your big chance.

“We are going to be looking for the elite high school player,” Cotto said. "We're going to be looking for college players in the area and maybe some semi-professionals.”

There’s been some notable efforts recently to get more diverse athletes interested in baseball. Cotto cites last year’s inaugural HBCU Swingman Classic during Major League Baseball’s All-Star Week in Seattle. Started by M’s legend, Ken Griffey Jr, the game hosts the country’s top baseball players from historically Black colleges and universities to play in a professional stadium in front of a national audience.

Off the field, the GOOD Neighbor League also wants to create opportunities for non-athletes.

“Broadcasters. We want to have people who want to be a general manager, want to be somebody who wants to be the director of marketing. We really want to expand this into the business sense of baseball,” Cotto said. “We believe now is the time for us in the Black and Latino communities in particular, to recapture the ownership end of baseball.”

The first pitch, he says, is set for June 15, 2025.