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Baseball in sub-Saharan Africa

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    Baseball in sub-Saharan Africa

    ...is apparently a thing.

    This weekend, the third annual Koshuen (sic) Tanzani National Championship of Baseball is being held at the Azania secondary school today and tomorrow. From the name, it seems the sport might have arrived here from Japan rather than the US.

    It's almost walking distance - if I make it out there tomorrow I will report back on the proceedings.

    #2
    Baseball in sub-Saharan Africa

    The Ugandan Little League team says hi.

    The Pirates have a South African prospect named Gift Ngoepe who has been kicking around for years and finally made AAA last year. He's not a great hitter but has managed to stick at shortstop, which is going to help him make the majors no end.

    Gift turns 26 next year though, so he's running out of time, at least in terms of having a real major league career.

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      #3
      Baseball in sub-Saharan Africa

      Didn't know about Uganda. I've literally neverseen a baseball diamond in Africa so I;m at a bit of a loss to figure out how the sport gets played.

      Anyone else know of any baseball outposes on the continent?

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        #4
        Baseball in sub-Saharan Africa

        It appears that the only African Little League teams that have made it to the regional qualifiers for Williamsport are Uganda and South Africa.

        Uganda are the only team to have actually made it to Pennsylvania (in 2012). It has since become more difficult, as Africa is now part of the same region as Europe.

        The only other possibilities that occur to me are Angola/Mozambique (because of the Cubans) and (even more unlikely) Namibia (because of the Dutch).

        Baseball Reference does not report a single major leaguer who was born in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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          #5
          Baseball in sub-Saharan Africa

          Are baseball and softball back in the Olympics? If so, at least one team per continent gets an invite. As Janik mentioned on the hockey thread, South Africa rather magnaminously gave up their spot in the Hockey next year, on the basis that despite being African champions they weren't ready to compete at that level.

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            #6
            Baseball in sub-Saharan Africa

            The Tokyo Organising Committee has asked for them (along with karate, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing), but the IOC has yet to approve the request.

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              #7
              Baseball in sub-Saharan Africa

              Barry Armitage actually pitched for the Royals in one of those exhibition games that are played in MLB parks right before opening day, but never quite made it into a major league regular season game. I bet that keeps him up at night.

              Ngoepe's got a pretty good chance of at least getting a cup of coffee in the majors, provided he doesn't get hurt. Jordy Mercer couldn't hit a lick last year, so Ngoepe might break with the team if he has a good spring training and shows he can handle big league pitching.

              Baseball has a little bit of a tradition in the white community in South Africa (Ngoepe's mum was a clubhouse attendant for a team in Joburg, which is how he got into the game) and it's rather surprising they haven't produced a reliever like Australia seems to do every other year or so.

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