The Tribune

By AMAJAHL KNOWLES

BAHAMIAN baseball legend Mario Ford is set to host his 28th annual summer baseball camp at Windsor Park, Nassau, on June 29.

Ford, a former national team cricket player who not only excelled in cricket but baseball as well, seeks to give back to inner city kids and uses his camp as a vehicle to do so.

Ford is enthusiastic about this year’s attendance and feels that this is going to be one of the better camps that he has held.

“I feel that the camp is going to be well attended and I expect that over 160 kids are going to register for this year’s camp,” said Ford.

Ford said that the camp would consist of four different age groups and focus on four different activities. “The age groups that will partake are from ages 4-7, 8-10, 11-12 and 13-15 with the four major activities being baseball, cricket, soccer and softball,” said Ford.

Ford singled out cricket as the sport they would try to place the most emphasis on with it being the national sport and so few young persons being passionate about this particular sport.

“We want to teach these young kids about cricket, the fact that it is the national sport is important and we want them to understand the basic fundamentals and concepts of the game and increase the desire to play amongst these young persons,” said Ford.

A fixture that is normally apart of these camps is the presence of Bahamian pro athletes that come back home to mentor the kids for the four weeks. But that will not be the case this year. “We normally have guys like Antoan Richardson to try and introduce our players to pro athletes to give them an opportunity to see Bahamians like themselves who compete an elite level and also the players who come and give tips to the youngsters on how they could possibly achieve similar success,” said Ford.

Ford emphasised the importance of teaching the players the fundamental rules of each of the four sports because that is the only way they could improve and master the basic concepts of the game.

Ford encourages parents to bring their children out and register for the camp because it provides them with a platform to have fun while learning and interacting with kids from different communities. The camp begins June 29 and ends July 24, and will take place 9am to 3pm Monday to Friday.