Baseball in Cebu

I’ve always known that Cebu City has a rich history when it comes to batted sports, having sent a few Cebuanos to the national teams in both baseball and softball but it came as a surprise to learn that Cebu Province, especially Northern Cebu, also has a rich baseball history.

Cebu Province won both the elementary and high school divisions in the recent Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association and will be going to the Palarong Pambansa, and that’s no easy feat.

Aside from that, they are also joining the Little League Visayas Qualifiers for a spot in the Philippine Series later this year. I hope they qualify because that will further boost the sport. I’ve always had a soft spot for baseball since it was the first sport and first love for the boys in our hometown. A love that was destroyed because of greedy and short-sighted men.

Every kid in my generation in Polomolok, South Cotabato wanted to be a baseball player. We had baseball games on weekends instead of basketball. And having produced Palaro and Little League champions, there was no shortage of players wanting to be part of the team that competed in the Little League series. Just imagine, a small town down South beating the big cities and provinces in baseball. That’s how good our town was.

But that’s no longer true now and I haven’t seen a non-Department of Education meet in our hometown since I left. The major reason for the sport’s death was the 1991 Little League scandal that left the country humiliated. That they were from Mindanao was doubly humiliating. I remember a few months after that Zamboanga team was exposed, some players saw action in our hometown’s 18-Under division and all of us watching had one thought, “These are the guys who humiliated us?”

Batted sports in the country has long since moved on from that, but sadly it never recovered in some areas. Cebu still has it, but without support it will never kick off.

In Cebu City, I’ve long advocated for the local commumity to form a group so they can help the sport, but save for some pockets in Talamban and Labangon, it seems no one is interested in the sport.

Here’s where North Cebu can step in. Perhaps, together with the Cebu Province Sports Commission, they can band a group for Cebu Province to help spread interest of the sport.

The goal of such group should be simple. Increase the player base for the support, which will lead to an increase of its audience. It’s the universal truth; kids bring their parents and grandparents to the ball game. That’s what happened with Cebu football.

What’s next after that?

Get the sport into the collegiate league—Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc.--which means collegiate scholarships for Cebuanos. And that’s always a good thing, right? Right now, only Manila leagues have baseball in their program, giving players limited options after high school.

It might not happen right away, nor five years from now. But having an end goal for a group is something that helps give it direction. If Cebu City will have difficulty forming a group, perhaps Cebu Province, North Cebu in particular, can take the lead.