Scoring home runs on a rubbish dump

by Sandiso Phaliso

For Thembokuhle Majwede, the training ground for his sport of choice is nothing more than a vacant field used as a rubbish dump by surrounding communities.

And while most boys his age are soccer-mad, dreaming of playing for Bafana Bafana, Majwede, 16, is one of a handful of players in Cape Town's townships whose role models are more likely to go not by the names of soccer greats like Jeff Radebe or Benni McCarthy, but rather by the names of American baseball icons like Joe DiMaggio or Babe Ruth.

Majwede plays baseball for the Philippi Angels Baseball Club, the only township team in the Baseball Association of the Western Cape, which was formed last year after senior coach Nyameko Gabada, 34, moved to Philippi from Paarl.

Although South Africa does have a national baseball team, the sport is a minor one and compared to the multitude of soccer clubs in Langa, Gugulethu, Nyanga, Philippi and Khayelitsha, the club is tiny, with about 80 players.

Majwede said apart from the difficult playing conditions, most people in Philippi knew little about baseball, making it difficult to play the game as it was not part of an established sporting culture like soccer.

Yet despite poor training facilities and the fact that it never has home ground advantage because it has to travel to established fields to play games, the club won the U12 and U14 divisions of the Western Cape league last year.

Gabada said he started the club in 2006 after noticing that young people had nothing to do after school.

He has a background in baseball, having previously served as deputy chairman of the Boland Baseball Club.

"Since I had the basics of baseball and played it when I was young, I thought it was for the best to share those skills with young people in my area."

He said players often came to training hungry and some did not own shoes to train with, making it difficult to organise training.

At the beginning, the club had little equipment and appeals for help to the local council had been unsuccessful.

The club received a boost when American-born Ian Edelstein, 34, who lives in Cape Town and is a former baseball player, joined the club as programme director.

He encountered the club when his son was due to play the Angels.

Parents from his son's team had driven to the township to scout out playing conditions and decided that it was too dangerous to send their children to play in Philippi.

"Most whites have never been in the townships. They speed along the highways and see shacks and rarely would anyone make a choice to go in the townships. But it's not as bad as people might think it is," said Edelstein, who said his encounter with the Philippi club motivated him to join and help out.

He said while Philippi was not unlike urban ghettos in the US in terms of crime, poverty, unemployment, drugs and alcohol abuse, in the US there were more public and private resources.

"I believe, if you live in a ghetto in the US and have the determination to improve your circumstances, you can and will succeed."

"I think the resources in South Africa are perhaps more limited but much harder to obtain for the individual."

Edelstein said baseball opened up experience and possibility.

"It has been said that hitting a small round ball (which is travelling at a great speed) with a small round bat is the single most difficult motion in any sport. To succeed requires extraordinary focus, patience and discipline."

He said when children learnt this focus by hitting a baseball, they had indirectly learned how to "focus and harmonise their mind and body to achieve a goal".

The refusal of teams to travel to Philippi was "kind of disturbing", said Edelstein, but perhaps understandable given that conditions in Philippi were such that games could not be played there.

As Edelstein describes it, the baseball field at Philippi is a littered drainage area.

He said the field was "horrific", but there was no choice but to practice there because there were no other facilities available.

And not being able to play home games made developing the game in the area difficult as parents were never able to see their children playing.

But Edelstein said the team had been able to show its potential and as a result had been fortunate enough to receive donations of balls, gear and other equipment from other teams playing baseball. - West Cape News