The Indians save the season.(City Of Hope)(Cleveland Indians donate money to high school baseball)

Antonio Nieves has no doubt where he'd be this March afternoon if he weren't at school preparing for baseball practice. "Juvenile court," says Nieves, a senior right fielder and second baseman at Lincoln West High in Cleveland.

When budget problems forced the Cleveland Municipal School District to cut all of its baseball and softball programs after the defeat of a tax levy last November, Nieves had no reason to stay out of trouble. "I started hanging out with the wrong people," he says, "and doing wrong things on the street."

Nieves wasn't alone. For many kids in the district, sports teams are the motivation for avoiding trouble in their neighborhoods and keeping grades up. The loss of the teams was devastating.

But on Valentine's Day, Nieves and his teammates--as well as the members of 19 other teams among the 10 high schools in the district--got life-altering news. The Cleveland Indians were donating $250,000 to save the season. The next day, the Indians made the official announcement at Jacobs Field.

"The thing that will always stick with me is the look in their eyes that somebody cared about them," Indians vice president of public relations Bob DiBiasio says of that day. "We were taken aback a little by the sense of caring and the 'I'm going to be a better student because of this.'"

When news hit of the Indians' donation, Lincoln West baseball coach Tim Casselberry walked ...