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COLUMN: Cultural exchange through baseball is the true Babe Ruth World Series prize
When Charleston Fighting Squirrels head coach and Babe Ruth World Series tournament director Michael Minner addresses the crowd after the championship game between Alabama and Kelso, the key phrase he mentioned in between his message was, “We made new friends.”
As competitive as the tournament was in the end, the main purpose of the event was to bring players and fans together in a two-week cultural exchange through baseball.
“It’s great for the boys to be able to travel here,” Puerto Rico coach Hector Soler said. “It’s a pleasure to be involved in the tournament, it’s organized very well.”
Throughout the tournament, opposing teams would shake hands after the games, trade mementos, and even swap jerseys with players. Mexico saw their run end on Tuesday before Canada took on Kansas with win No. 1 on the line. The field was flooded with Mexican and Canadian moms alike wanting to take a photo of the boys who traded with each other before the first pitch.
“All of us jersey-swapped with Mexico right before [the last game],” Canada infielder Jake Markowsky said. “So we gave our red jerseys away. And we had pins that we gave to all the teams after the game. Just little memorandums for later in life, you can remember this.”
Despite the language barrier, baseball brought everyone together. Because of baseball, Cape Girardeau became the sport’s cultural center for two weeks. Six different groups of adolescents experienced America around the Capaha diamond.
“It’s a totally different culture,” Netherlands coach Jeandre Jacopucci said. “It’s a totally different way of playing baseball. It feels like baseball is more of a religion.”
Jacopucci said there aren’t a lot of stores in Holland that sell baseball equipment. Given how readily available baseball gear and apparel are just down William St., by the interstate, his players took advantage of their time here and went on a rare shopping spree.
They also made the night games a team bonding experience at the ballpark when they weren’t involved.
“In the night games, we all come as a team together and we come to support all the teams,” Jacopucci said.
The Netherlands went 0-4, making them one of four teams to go through the Babe Ruth World Series winless, but Jacopucci said his team learned a valuable lesson from their experience at Capaha Field.
“The keyword of what I keep telling my team is they have to want it,” Jacopucci said. “And at some games, I saw that they wanted it more than the other team but sometimes the opposing team is just better. But that’s what I encourage them to do and to continue their baseball career.”
It’s a big investment to assemble a team good enough to make it to the Babe Ruth World Series, it’s an even bigger investment to travel to Cape Girardeau.
“It takes one year of planning in advance because of the expenses of everything falling on the parents. We don't get sponsored by anybody, so everything falls under the parents so they have to make their own way,” Aruba Babe Ruth League Commissioner and team manager Eldwin Geerman said. “They find a way to make the money for the kids to come over here. So, everybody has to pay for everything, hotels, food and rental cars, everything we have to pay for ourselves. But it's a great experience for the kids, all we try to do is for the kids to enjoy playing ball.”
Some are lucky enough to have state backing. It may not be a surprise that the nation that got to worry about expenses the least went the furthest. Puerto Rico made it all the way to the quarterfinal round, only losing to the Southeast Tropics twice in the tournament.
“We are fortunate enough that the state gives us the means to do that for our boys,” Solar said.
Australia made their way to Cape through Texas in various tournaments preparing for the big one. On the way, they got to experience the rodeo in Sikeston, and a cornucopia of American fast-food locations.
“Wendy's is the best. I think In-N-Out was second and then Hooters was pretty good. Their food was actually really good,” said Australian player Kye Varrone. “Chick-fil-A was not as good as I thought it would be.
The Aussie Drop Bears has long been a favorite among both the crowd and field during the two years the Babe Ruth World Series has been in town. While never involved in both championship rounds, the Aussies were always the biggest supporters of the participants.
Last year, they joined in the Tropics’ title-winning celebration and swapped jerseys with them. This year Washington, the runner-ups, saluted the team, who were cheering from the right field party deck.
“This is a dream for a lot of these kids to just play ball in a space,” Australia coach Lance MacKichan said. “Whether they go all the way or whether they just go back home and say, ‘Hey, what an experience’. That's all that matters to them, is that they, play good good baseball, love the game and have a lot of fun. That's the real thing that they're all happy about.”
While newly-minted long-distance friendships aren’t always sustainable in the face of time, the memories encapsulated by the cultural trinkets exchanged from one player to another will last forever.
For two weeks under one ballpark, regardless of nationality, race, and language; parents were parents, kids were kids, and baseball was the common thread that tied it all together.