(Photo: Lesley MacNeil)
While the rest of the province was feeling the effects of a long winter, a group of two-dozen female baseball players from Nova Scotia took off for Cuba earlier this month as part of a “goodwill tour”.
The experience they received while in Cuba is something that they will never forget and as organizer Greg Jennings says, the trip is about much more than playing baseball.
“There were several benefits of the trip as (we) were not in Cuba just to compete on the baseball field but also to experience another culture,” he said. (We wanted) to encourage and show the Cubans that girls can play baseball at a high level, and to participate in the act of giving as they presented much needed baseball equipment and school supplies to the local community.”
The trip is part of a larger goodwill tour that saw over 100 kids from Atlantic Canada travel to Cuba to participate in a series of games against local Cuban competition. This year, a total of five teams made the trip to the baseball island hotbed including the two all-female teams.
Upon arriving on the island, players were split into two groups forming both a 13U and 16U team. Teams were made up of players coming from different levels of play, but they managed to gel early and perform well on the field.
“The Canadian girls came together very quickly and played a game each day for the first four days,” explained Jennings. “Each of the teams won their first game by a large margin but by the fourth game the Cuban girls had drastically closed the gap with each of the two Canadian teams only winning their final game by a single run.”
Throughout the week the Canadian players developed a close bond with their new friends from Cuba overcoming an obvious language barrier to connect through baseball.
“The Canadian girls and Cuban girls quickly became friends despite the language barrier,” continued Jennings. “After the Cuban girls spent a day at the resort with the Canadians, it was very clear that the girls from each country had really formed a close bond in a short period of time, as there were plenty of tears shed when it was time to say goodbye.”
Before departure, the Canadian girls left used baseball equipment and school supplies - that they spent months collecting – for the local community. The items totaled over 1,000 pounds in weight and carried a value of thousands more.
A great amount of time and effort went into making this trip a reality for the girl’s who were lucky enough to go. Although she didn’t attend, Jennings says that a lot of credit needs to go towards Baseball Canada Treasurer and Hammonds Plains (NS) Minor Baseball President Holly LaPierre for the tremendous work she has done over the years to help grow girl’s baseball.
“It is difficult to imagine that a trip like this would have ever happened for two all-girls teams without the hard work of Holly LaPierre,” said Jennings. “Over the past eight years or so Holly has put a lot of hard work into giving girls opportunities to play baseball.”
In 2014, LaPierre had donated some Hammonds Plains baseball uniforms that were handed out to some local youth Cuban players. When Jennings spotted the uniforms this year, he couldn’t help but think of the woman who has done so much for girl’s baseball in Nova Scotia.
“It was very rewarding to arrive at a baseball field in Cuba and see young children wearing Hammonds Plains Baseball uniforms that were no longer in use in Hammonds Plains and had been donated by Holly to children's baseball programs in Cuba.”
