International Pastime?

At first, it was just a simple baseball clinic. Then it turned into an actual league with a few teams. Now, they compete in national tournaments and make trips to America.
Indeed, the West Portland Little League from the Island of Jamaica has come a long way under the guidance of Pastor Ed Moore of the North Shore Baptist Church in Bayside and his full-time missionary, Wally Mackenzie, who serves as the league’s director and coach.
With help from the Bayside Little League, a dozen 13- and 14-year-old kids from Jamaica arrived in New York City recently for a week of sightseeing and exhibition baseball. They squared off against the Bayside Little League at Crocheron Park for six games, went to Shea Stadium, ate dinner in Little Italy, shopped in China Town, saw the Statue of Liberty, took the Staten Island Ferry, and rode the subway.
When they first started playing America’s Pastime, many of the players had a tough time putting their gloves on correctly. Now they can catch, throw, and mash the ball like veterans.
“They were pretty good,” Michael Ortiz, 12, of Bayside said after one of the games. “They can make contact a lot and their defense is pretty good. They were hitting the ball hard.”
Leon Taylor, an associate scout in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, always felt baseball could have a home in his native country. The Kingston, Jamaica product first saw it in a clinic in 1991, when kids flooded fields for the chance to try the new sport. Now, it is clear to him, it will only take practice and experience.
“They’ve got the natural ability to throw, catch, run - they do it in cricket,” Taylor said. “It’s a matter of time until they get it. What Bayside has done is a tremendous help.
“If Jamaica can bobsled,” he added, “then this is a piece of cake.”
“It’s a good experience,” said Jason White, 14, one of the youngsters from Buff Bay in Jamaica. “Now other children down in Jamaica can build a stronger team.”
The new sport is growing in popularity. This year the league had 100 kids and will add a 9-10-year-old division for boys and a girls softball division. The last two years, they represented Jamaica in the Caribbean Region of the Little League World Series in Puerto Rico. This year they traveled to America.
“When the kids hear about these trips, they all want to join,” Mackenzie said. “They all want to be a part of it; the floodgates open.”
“It’s an experience that these kids would never have gotten,” he went on. “Most kids never get out of Jamaica; most adults never get out of Jamaica. This shows them a completely new way of living, a whole new culture. It’s important for them to see another world outside of Jamaica.”