Tim Bennett, CEO of The Hank Aaron Sports Academy announced today that their organization, which has a mission and purpose to bring baseball back to underserved and diverse youth communities from the inner city, has created a partnership with Team Renteria, an academy based out of Barranquilla, Colombia, which partnership will directly serve to benefit youth and baseball in the summer months in Mississippi and surrounding states.

Team Renteria, which was formed in 1998 has a similar vision of working with the youth in Colombia as well as throughout Latin America, where the organization currently represents 25 Countries. 

“This is a great opportunity for Team Renteria to get on board with the Hank Aaron Sports Academy in furthering the dream, vision, and mission of the man we consider to be one of, if not the greatest baseball players of all time, Hank Aaron,” said Edinson Renteria. 

“Not only in Colombia, but around the world, Hank is well known for how he played the game on the field and the man he was off the field, playing with integrity, enduring the criticisms, yet always looking out for others to have access to this great and International game. Now we’ll have the opportunity to partner with Mr. Bennett and further that mission for years to come both here in these Latin-American Countries and the United States.”

Bennett says that this is only the first step of the partnership and that announcements will be made in the near future as to the ways in which the two organizations plan to work together. 

In 2019, Tim Bennett received the rights, property, and local government support to build the first baseball Academy in Rio Negro, a suburb of Medellin Colombia, which has a population of just under 3 Million people. 

“This is not only a great partnership, but it is a great opportunity as we think we have come up with one of the more thoughtful and creative ideas of how to further baseball interests and the attention given to inner-city, underprivileged, and underserved youth, both in the United States as well as in Latin-America,” said Bennett. “We’re planning to make a more formal announcement regarding our collective efforts and future plans for the State of Mississippi (home of Atlanta Braves – MiLB – Mississippi Braves) in the upcoming weeks”

Bennett has been involved in baseball at the Major League level with the Atlanta Braves since the early 2000s and has been a part of or led in the relocation and new stadium construction with the Tampa Bay Rays, from Disney’s Wide World of Sports (2004) to Montgomery, Ala., as well as the Atlanta Braves move from Greenville, S.C. to Pearl, Miss. (2005) and the Milwaukee Brewers relocation to MGM Park in Biloxi, Miss. (2015) where Bennett served as Co-Owner and the first African-American owner of an MLB / MiLB Team in the history of the state of Mississippi.

In 2019 Bennett and the Legend Henry “Hank” Aaron came together with a vision to open the Hank Aaron Sports Academy in Jackson, MS. at the former home (stadium) of the N.Y. Mets and Houston Astros (AA) Teams, where Bennett has invested over $3MM of his personal finances to see this dream of theirs come to a reality when the gates of the Hank Aaron Sports Academy opened.

Edgar and his brother Edinson founded Team Rentería to help Colombian baseball by creating a baseball academy where young talents could be developed from ages 3 to 18. In 1998, Team Rentería organized Colombian baseball through the Colombian Professional Baseball League and in 2005 obtained the endorsement from MLB to have their players participate in the league and bring more attention to the young talents showcased in Colombia. To this date, Colombia has 12 players in MLB and over 110+ players in MiLB. 

“While we are saddened by the departure of the Mississippi Braves after the 2024 season, we are at the same time encouraged by the 20-year run that the Atlanta Braves organization has had here and the tremendous multi-billion Dollar economic impact that has been experienced by the city of Pearl, its residents, and all of Central Mississippi,” Bennett said. “This development led to creating thousands of jobs, a higher quality of life, and keeping the dream alive here in Jackson; now I’m just as excited for Mississippi’s bright future in baseball as we will soon announce – what’s next for baseball here in the state Capital!”