|
Holliston
High School baseball coach Harvey Krupnick was selected by Major
League Baseball to travel to Africa as part of the league’s
envoy program.
It’s
always nice to be back in the good ‘ol USA after four very
interesting weeks in South Africa.
I
ended up working 54 baseball clinic or practices over a 28-day period.
My major league baseball manual had daily journal entry forms and
each evening I would write in how many players and coaches were
in attendance at each clinic. By the end of my trip I had coached
606 kids who had already been playing baseball, 853 new kids who
had never played baseball and 196 coaches who were in attention
during those clinics. That comes out to approximately 1,459 players
plus 196 coaches, which is 1,655 total attention at all the practices
and clinics.
I
slept in seven different locations - Johannesburg, Durbin, Mdantsane,
George, Oudtshoon, Cape Town and Paarl - and with seven different
host families. Each host family was really into baseball all year
around. They took care of my place to sleep, food, clinic scheduling
and travel. It was exciting and interesting to meet so many new
people and find out all about them and a little sad to have to say
goodbye after interacting so closely with them.
One
personally gratifying part of the trip was that the South Africa
Baseball Federation has decided to adopt my batting school program.
|
