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Volume 15,
Number 3 |
Also in this section:  Omar Moreno explains the realities of baseball and life Major League boost for Panama's Little Leaguers photos and story by Eric Jackson "I'd
like to see you all accomplish your dreams and make it to the top, and
what's even more important, stay at the top," Omar Moreno told the
boys. "But there are only 30 teams in the major leagues. You have to
work hard. You have to practice your baseball, but at the same time you
have to study, so that if you don't make it to the top of baseball you
can be a doctor, lawyer, pilot or engineer and contribute something to
this country."
Professionals
Sherman Obando, left, and Candy Maldonado, right, teach boys a skill So who wants to hear that from a guy without a university degree? No, Omar Moreno doesn't have that. He does, however, have a World Series champions ring, from the 1979 season when he was the leadoff hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He led the National League twice in stolen bases and once in triples, burning up the basepaths en route from humble beginnings as the son of a Puerto Armuelles banana worker to comfortable retirement as a Major League hero of yesteryear. Moreno is giving something back to Panama, through the Fundacion Omar Moreno and as the unofficial leader of a grassroots movement to clean up the corruption in Panamanian baseball. On February 2 Moreno and friends, under the auspices of the foundation, Major League Baseball and the US Embassy, ended a series of baseball clinics for Little League players with an instructional clinic at Clayton. Participating along with Moreno were Panamanian retired Major League ballplayers Sherman Obando (recently vetoed as a coach on Panama's World Baseball Classic team by the thuggish FEDEBEIS chief Franz Wever), Elías Sosa and Olmedo Sáenz, former Major League outfielder and current ESPN baseball analyst Candy Maldonado (a Puerto Rican), and Vincent Scott, a Colon native and veteran umpire and baseball official who now runs Major League Baseball's international umpire instruction programs. The clinic began with talks by the distinguished instructors for the 200 or so boys who came --- a large contingent of very young players brought by the Club de Leones, Panama's champion Little League team from Juan Diaz, boys from Colon's Alex Zapata Baseball Academy and a number of other kids who heard of the event from various sources --- and several dozen parents who were also in attendance. Then the boys took to several parts of the field, to take instruction in batting from Obando and Maldonado, pitching from Sosa, outfield techniques from Moreno and infielding from Sáenz. Meanwhile, Scott gave a talk to the parents up in the grandstands. He praised and encouraged their support, but warned them about that syndrome that people call "the Little League parent." When the parent rides the umpire about some call, he or she might actually be right as to the call, Scott acknowledged. However, it's not just rude behavior and neglect of parental responsibility to help teach a boy sportsmanship, it actually impedes the son's development as a baseball player. Baseball is a game of concentration and discipline, he explained, and to get anywhere a boy needs to learn how to put a disappointing call out of his mind and be prepared for the next pitch. Out in the field, it was a combination of technical advice and common sense pointers about how to make the most of lives that are mostly ahead of young baseball players. Not specifically mentioned but very palpable were the political implications. I just got a scowl out of Moreno when I mentioned FEDEBEIS president Franz Wever, the disgraced PRD legislator who was humiliated in the primary elections after an infamous public performance at the Beijing Olympics, where he offered to show the sports press corps his penis. (Moreno had long ago had his falling out with Wever, the former having been removed as the national baseball team's manager for the apparent sole purpose of demonstrating the latter's destructive power.) But Moreno is first among equals in a broad-based if mostly under the surface popular movement to rid the national baseball scene of Wever, and one of the unwritten sub-texts of this event is that Major League Baseball, sick of Wever's financial abuses, and the US Embassy, eager to help talented young Panamanians and at the same time distance itself from the most flagrantly corrupt members of this country's political class, teamed up with the Fundacion Omar Moreno to put on this series of clinics specifically without involving Wever or FEDEBEIS.  Elías Sosa points out the importance of footwork...  ... and the young hurler gets the difference  that this reporter never came close to perfecting in his time --- how to hit a baseball  If you watch baseball on ESPN's Spanish network , you will hear some more of Candy Maldonado  Olmedo Sáenz explains the importance of being on tiptoes, with knees bent, if you care to stop those screaming line drives that will come your way if you play third base  How an outfielder picks up a ground ball, Omar Moreno explains, determines whether he will be in a good position to get the throw off without extra moves  Franz Wever's petty power play voided Sherman Obando's selection as batting coach for Panama's national team  When the military bases were here, Vincent Scott, who's a cousin of Rod Carew's, worked for the Armed Forces baseball leagues and trained many umpires, some of whom now work as professionals in the United States Also in this section: News
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