Main image: the baseball field at 71st Street in Riverside Park. Inset: Coach Youman Wilder
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Baseball may be America’s pastime — but what happens when armed ICE agents show up and start questioning kids during practice? Coach Youman Wilder says that’s exactly what happened to his players on June 26 in Riverside Park–as we reported last week–near the batting cages close to West 71st Street.
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“They just walked up and they started asking my kids where they’re from. How old they are, are their parents from here?” said Youman when we spoke to him in a phone interview. The coach of more than 20 years, who’s coached multiple players to the major leagues, told us he was shooting hoops at the nearby basketball courts as practice had just ended. He noticed a group of six individuals, four of whom were wearing masks. “The whole get-up,” said Wilder when asked what they looked like. “The suit, the camouflage, the ICE, the gun, the taser.”
Wilder instructed his boys to move to the back of the batting cage as he approached the agents. Acting as their legal guardian, he said, “In my protection, I’m going to ask them to invoke their Fifth and Fourth Amendment rights.” Turning back to the players, he warned, “If they start attacking me — whatever — get over that fence and get the hell out of here.”
Holding a law degree from Grand Canyon University, Wilder noted that none of the passersby stopped to record the confrontation or take pictures. “You had bikers going by — nothing. Older people going by — nothing. ICE screamed at them to get back.”
“I hate to say this,” Wilder added, “but they just looked like cowards,” referring to the onlookers who stood back.
Coach Youman and his team have been working out in Washington Heights and Inwood, where he says they’ve seen ICE agents before. “I’ve been seeing them since April … Things like this should not happen on the Upper West Side,” he added, calling the Upper West Side one of the most liberal parts of the country. “How can we protect those people who are going to be going to school in about six weeks?”
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Only one player had returned to practice as of Monday, July 14, according to Wilder. It was the team’s first time back in Riverside Park since the encounter.
“I don’t think they’re nervous for themselves,” Wilder said of his players. “I think they’re nervous for their fathers, their mothers, their grandparents — nervous for cousins. They’re nervous for their family.” He added that some players may be afraid that a relative could get caught up in a situation like the one they witnessed.
Wilder says he teaches his players how to succeed — on and off the field — and that this message carries through his broader community of athletes. Three of his former players have won World Series titles, while others now play internationally or at top colleges.
“They’re used to being around people who speak well, talk well. They don’t curse,” he said proudly. “Similarly, we teach them to hear and respect authority. I tell my kids: you’ll never win a battle with the cops in the street. You’ll win the battle in the courtroom.”
With his current players — all born in America and hailing from Washington Heights and Harlem — Wilder believes he’s setting them up to succeed in life, not just in baseball.
Wilder says he was nearly handcuffed after the alleged ICE agents accused him of obstruction of justice. Still, he doesn’t believe they were there to make any arrests. “I think they were there to show everybody, ‘I’m here,’” he said.
He also shared a video with us, posted to Threads four days ago, showing what he says is another alleged ICE incident — this time on Amsterdam Avenue, between West 87th and 88th Streets. “I was speaking to one of my kid’s moms, who actually works in the neighborhood,” Wilder said. In the video, a group of armed personnel can be seen; one appears to have a “Police” nameplate on their shirt.
View on Threads
“I hope you can write this,” Youman said toward the end of our 30-minute call. “I’m afraid for kids who are going to predominantly Latino schools. My thing now is — do they show up at these schools and do the same thing?”
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Having grown up in Brooklyn, Wilder said he doesn’t believe ICE should be targeting children at school. “My whole thing is education, and now they’re trying to take away the 14th Amendment.”
“I’ve been very fortunate in my life to get educated and know about the law. People like me will be fine,” Wilder said. “It’s the others I’m worried about.”
“There’s a way to do this, and this is not the way to do it,” he added, referring to someone who might be undocumented. “You never know what’s happening when people have authority — and unchecked authority.”
When Youman tried to file a police report about what happened at the field, he says the 30th Precinct told him he couldn’t file anything with them and that he should reach out to Homeland Security instead.
“I’m a Black man in America. I know how the laws have worked for people like me — forever,” he said. “We’ll be fine. I’ve given my life to service, helping people. I got lucky in life. I grew up in poverty, but education — and the ability to hit a baseball — opened doors for me.”
“And I tell people, I’m an unabashed, double liberal,” he added with a mix of sincerity and humor. “I’m not a progressive — I’m a liberal, 100%.”
“But I also tell people this: don’t blame people for your failure. Don’t blame it on being Black. Don’t blame it on being Latino. Don’t blame. Because when you open that door in this country, you can go and create your dream.”
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Why am I not surprised the NYPD wasn’t going to accept a report.