For a change, baseball, not basketball or volleyball, figured prominently in the local sports news cycle last week.
The once-in-a-blue moon occurrence materialized with word from officials of the country’s national sports association (NSA) for baseball that famous American athlete Tim Tebow will play for the Philippines in the World Baseball Classic (WBC).
Tebow, the ex-college football superstar and Heisman Trophy winner, was formerly starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos in the National Football League (NFL). He’s now in pursuit of a career in Major League Baseball (MLB).
Patterned after the Fifa World Cup and Fiba World Cup, the WBC will be held at Taichung International Baseball Stadium in Taiwan next year.
The Classic, featuring 16 teams and showcasing the best baseball talents in the world, is played every four years, with the 12 highest finishing nations qualifying for the next edition.
The remaining four slots will be filled by winners of four qualifying tournaments not arranged on a geographic basis like those in the Fifa and Fiba.
After a failed attempt at quarterback for other NFL teams, the resilient Tebow now plays for the minor league club of the New York Mets organization, with the aim of graduating into the majors soon.
Born in Makati City while his parents built a Christian ministry in Mindanao, the 32-year-old Tebow always says he “has a heart for the country of my birth.”
Unknown to many, Tebow’s foundation along with the Cure organization, runs a $3-million, six-story charity hospital in Davao City.
The facility caters to Mindanao’s impoverished children with cleft lips, club feet and bowed legs, and those with untreated burns and hydrocephalus.
Tebow hopes to hone his skills while playing for the Philippine team. His stint in the WBC qualifying tournaments starting in Tucson, Arizona, next week is made possible by WBC rules that allow players to play for countries where they were born.
Baseball’s NSA says Tebow’s presence will help revive the local consciousness for baseball, once our dominant sport until basketball took over. The game locally is still healing from years of neglect.
That is why MLB scouts will not turn their gaze on the Philippines for a long time and probably never will, while being rewarded with stars from neighboring countries.
Yesterday’s baseball bastion in Asia, the Philippines has lagged. While Asians continue as top international prospects, native-born Pinoy ballers are nowhere to be found in the majors.
With baseball continuing to go global every minute, team owners are willing to pay handsomely for foreign stars.
As of 2019, MLB rosters feature 251 international players with the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Cuba the leading exporters of talent.
Asians are ably represented with 12 players from Japan and South Korea on current MLB teams.