(LA Times) Nestled in a clearing between rye fields and lush jungle, the bases on one of the few baseball diamonds in the Philippines’ Tanauan City sat in sludge.
In video taken by scouts visiting the area, a rooster crowed in the background and a dog watched from behind a rusty foul-line fence.
Baseball dreams hardly exist there, where kids play with fraying gloves and a cracked yellow bucket of cowhide-less baseballs. Yet to representatives visiting last summer from the Philippines national baseball team, the field represented promise.
“There is endless possibility out there,” said Bill Picketts, head coach of the Philippines national team. “There’s nothing. There’s no facilities.”
There are hundreds of kids with unbridled joy for the sport, as Picketts — also the head coach at L.A. Pierce College — saw during a summer trip to Tanauan City. Vince Sagisi, a former Major League Baseball scout of 13 years who’s now the Philippines national team’s recruiting coordinator, said he stumbled upon a 14-year-old with a wipeout three-pitch mix and a shortstop “making throws like Derek Jeter” on a six-week trip to the islands… Read More
