Nov. 24, 2014
Day two started after eating breakfast at the hotel and there were two games, so the team split in two today. One team headed to play the Rays’ Dominican Academy team and the other to play against the Rangers’ Dominican Academy team. I played against the Rangers team, which similar to yesterday saw us playing from behind and coming back to win in the end.
After the game, we met up with the other half of the team, ate lunch and headed for a few small sugarcane villages. Once there, the team split again into three groups in different villages and interacted with the locals and got to see first-hand the lifestyle they lived. Conditions were poor and they all lived in broken down shacks with little essentials and that is why they greatly appreciated our presence. We handed out simple hygiene kits that had basic bathroom necessities but to them it meant the world. Jeren Kendall and I walked house-to-house handing out the kits alongside a young boy from the village. No one there spoke English, so the little Spanish we know was the only means of communication.
We met a group of Dominicans about the same age as us and one knew English so we were able to learn about their day-to-day lifestyle, which consisted of herding cattle, playing baseball and doing whatever their community needed.
We played a little baseball with the kids in the town and we used a broken metal bat and a baseball that had its cover torn off. Then the bus came back to pick us up and we headed down the dirt road to a slightly larger community and held a small baseball clinic with the kids who came out. This was truly an awesome experience and we split into six stations. My station was base running and we ended it by having each kid do his or her best home run trot. Some were shy and others were flamboyant copying their favorite pros like Big Papi and Robinson Cano.
We also got to try sugarcane there, which the locals brought fresh from the fields. They cut it up by hand, it looked like long sticks to us, and taught us how to eat it. You break off a small piece and chew it like gum and just like you could imagine a sugar tasting juice is what came out. I felt like I was chewing a stick off the ground but it produced a delicious flavor.
After connecting with the different communities for about two hours we got back on the bus after a long day and headed back to the hotel. We all walked away from the day really cherishing what we have and learned a lot about the lifestyle of the Dominicans. It is one of those things that you don’t believe in movies until you see it. Both fields we played on in the villages were covered with rocks and had long thick grass but that is all the kids need here. They play with no shoes, busted gloves and have horses and cows meandering in the outfield. Those are the conditions they know and this environment was a pleasure to be apart of.
Freshman Will Toffey will be providing daily updates of what the Commodores are experiencing in the Dominican Republic on and off the field.
