Dozens of kids from the Boys & Girls Club came to Progressive Field on Monday. The message they were getting from the Indians was that getting – and staying – physically fit was critical to their young lives.

“Try to get twenty to thirty minutes of cardiovascular activity a day, get off the couch get outside have fun and play,” said Indians trainer Jeff Desjardins.

The Play program, which stands for Promoting a Lifetime of Activity for Youth, promotes a lifetime of activity for youth. It was put together by the professional baseball trainers society and has been holding these clinics since 2004. The clinics have been held in every major league ballpark.

“We try to teach healthy habits early and often that’s our mantra and were going to use that same approach today.”

So the critical message, if you stay physically fit physically and active, your life will be more productive. The other aspect for the young people, if they do become athletes at the high school or college level they need to do this the right way, and not try and take a short cut. And that message for these kids, stay away from performance enhancing drugs.

“It become very prevalent not just in sports, but in society as well as a body image drug and we have a million, million and a half kids using these drugs,” said Brian Parker of the Hooton Foundation.