Using baseball to create a portrait of America

Marc Zarefsky Marc Zarefsky

Marc Zarefsky

Freelance Writer for Healthcare, Higher Ed, Non-Profits and Tech — I transform complex topics into engaging content

Published May 31, 2014
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Photojournalist Ray Whitehouse is capturing scenes from all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums. He will donate any proceeds from his journey to the league’s Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) youth outreach program.



Ray Whitehouse took one official at-bat at Wrigley Field. As the Chicago-native walked toward home plate on that late-summer afternoon, he looked out at the sun-soaked ivy-covered wall, the green scoreboard towering over the centerfield bleachers, the yellow foul poles adorned with “Hey Hey” and the retired numbers of Cubs legends Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Ryne Sandberg and Billy Williams.

He soaked in the history.

He then stepped into the batters box, took a deep breath and waited for the pitch. The picture above forever captures what happened next.

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It was in 1990 that Whitehouse first walked through the gates of the Friendly Confines. Well, he didn’t actually walk. He was only 6 months old. His father Jay carried him to their seats in the third inning. That same inning, Shawon Dunston hit a grand slam as the Cubs went on to a 15-2 win over Philadelphia.

Now on this day, in August 2005, standing in the same spot where Dunston belted that towering home run, Whitehouse tightened the grip on his bat, leaned in and roped a single down the third base line. In his 15 years of playing organized baseball, he would never treasure a hit more than that one.

Whitehouse, a rising sophomore at Whitney Young at the time, was playing at Wrigley thanks to Major League Baseball’s Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) youth outreach program. His team had made it to the RBI league championship game. Baseball had taught him a lot about success and failure, patience and humility, but it was within RBI that he fully comprehended the value of teamwork, organization, discipline and leadership.

Today Whitehouse is 24 years old, a budding photojournalist still living in Chicago. He graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 2012, and he will pursue a master's degree in visual journalism at the University of North Carolina beginning this fall.

Between now and then, he will embark on a journey that combines his two passions - baseball and photography - in an effort to give back to the RBI program that gave him so much. Whitehouse will travel across the country to photograph a baseball game at all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums. He will capture shots from the game, but he will also look to showcase the game experience, be it from the perspective of a beer vendor or from a young girl seeing her very first game. He wants his project - titled American Baseball Journal - to create a portrait of America through its national pastime.

Whitehouse plans to sell prints from his journey and publish a book with pictures from the experience. All proceeds will be donated to the RBI Scholarship Fund.

"It’s an organization that helped me when I was younger, and so I want to try and help pay them back," Whitehouse said. "I want to pay it forward to other people who are having similar experiences in RBI."

Like many baseball fans, Whitehouse has dreamed for years of traveling to every MLB stadium. With graduate school approaching at the end of the summer, the timing seemed natural to turn his dream into reality.

"For better or for worse, I know that this is probably one of the last times of my life where I won’t have a lot of commitments," Whitehouse said, "so pragmatically it was the right time to do this project."

Whitehouse began the trip on Friday, May 16 at Target Field in Minneapolis with a game between the Minnesota Twins and the Seattle Mariners. He is posting pictures from each stadium on americanbaseballjournal.com, his personal website for the project. The site has Whitehouse's compete schedule, which can also be found below.

Check back throughout the summer to see and hear about Whitehouse's experiences.

Learn how you can donate to the project and the RBI Scholarship Fund.

Follow along as Ray Whitehouse tours all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums

Marc Zarefsky currently works as a content strategist at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. He previously worked as communications and social media manager at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. Learn more about him on LinkedIn or on his personal website.

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