Dominican Republic keen to help develop baseball in South Africa

According to the South African Baseball Union president Marc Moreau, the ‘baseball diplomacy’ collaboration between South Africa and the Dominican Republic will help boost the development of baseball in the country.

The two countries agreed to this collaboration last year after the signing of a memorandum of understanding.

Moreau said this deal would create educational opportunities and exchange programmes for players, coaches and officials.

There will also be opportunities for training programmes in batting, pitching, defence instructors, physical trainers and umpires, which will help improve the level of baseball in the country.

“Their system is like ours and they have lots of townships. The idea is that, as the second biggest provider of players in the Major League Baseball (MLB) in the USA and with their baseball knowledge, we want to learn about how they get their players to be so good,” Moreau said.

“It is an exchange programme. There are opportunities for our players and coaches to go over there. We will get some of their players to play in our leagues so that we can improve our level.”

Moreau hosted the Dominican Republic and USA ambassadors to South Africa during the National Baseball Championship senior men’s final between Gauteng and Cape Town on April 11 at Boksburg Cardinals fields at Boksburg Stadium.

“We want to show them we are playing the sport that is number one in their countries to encourage them to invest in the sport to develop and provide opportunities for children.”

He pointed out South Africa’s lack of depth in pitching compounded during the World Baseball and Softball Confederations (WBSC) competitions, adding that an improvement will help in developing the quality of batters.

“We want to get our pitchers to pitch over 90km/h. The Dominican Republic has junior players that pitch over 100km/h. We don’t have any. Our top pitcher tops 85km/h and it is a big difference.

“We have to start getting depth in pitching from juniors to seniors so that we can have our own best pitchers.

“On the short-term, why not get their top pitchers over here so that our batters can get better and our pitchers can train with them?”

Moreau said the Dominican Republic Baseball Federation is keen to help. After consultation with the departments of international affairs and cooperation and sport, recreation, arts and culture, the implementation process will begin soon.

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