Major League Baseball Heaven

So if you guys don’t know (or haven’t walked into our family room at my house), I’m a big baseball fan. While I was in Ecuador, the only sport people cared about was soccer and the national hero was a speed-walker. My Ecuador experience was great, but could have been better if there was baseball.

So now I’m in the Dominican Republic. They love baseball here. Not only is it the national sport, but it’s really the only sport people value here. In that regard, I fit in quite well. I saw on the Esperanza website about a month before I came down that Jose Reyes, one of the best shortstops in the big leagues, worked with Esperanza to build a youth baseball field.

Norberto, the director of the Puerto Plata branch of Esperanza and also the guy I share an apartment with, has some MLB connections (kinda). First of all, Esperanza was started by Dave Valle, a former player in the majors who played for about 12 years. His son actually lived where I live now last fall and is a pretty sweet guy.

Since Esperanza’s main goal is to help people, people like giving money to us, and especially some wealthy businessmen. Norberto told me that one time on a HOPE trip (where donors from Esperanza’s partner HOPE come down and check out what we’re doing) a group had the owner of a pretty big bank and also the guy who was the co-owner of the Texas Rangers with George W. Bush (that was the rumor).

Norberto is from San Pedro, which is where Sammy Sosa and a lot of other players are from. He said that his dad played softball with Sosa’s brothers and went to school with Robinson Cano (of the Yankees) as well as George Bell’s sons. Apparently he even ate dinner at Alfonso Soriano’s house when Soriano helped out with Esperanza (scroll all the way to the bottom of this link), but Soriano was out of the country (Norberto said he met his mom). Felix Pie (the guy the Cubs just traded) lives right by the Esperanza office in San Pedro, used to date one of Norberto’s friends.

My hope is to meet a player or two and get a picture with them. We shall see what and who the next three months bring my way.

Some cool things I hope to do while here (besides meet some baseball players):
-meet the kid I sponsor with Compassion International and volunteer with them
-go to Haiti on a HOPE Trip
-find a gym and work out a few of times a week
-keep improving my Spanish
-contribute a lot at work

Stuff I would appreciate prayer for:
-That I could make a difference here spiritually and contribute at work
-to really grow as a person here
-that I could also find direction in life after I'm done here