Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Baseball kid catches first national break
JACK Campbell, 11, from Ottery, will represent South Africa at the 12U Baseball World Cup in Taiwan next week.
Playing in the tournament will be a milestone for the Grade 4 pupil from Sunlands Primary.
Jack participated in the provincial championships at Marks Park, Johannesburg, in April to earn a place on the national Under-12 team.
“I can’t really describe the feeling,” he said. “But I’m very excited. It’s been my dream forever to play in the national side. My parents are very excited, same like me.”
Jack plays catcher for the Athlone As Baseball Club. He has played baseball since his father, Chris, a former junior national player, introduced him to the sport. “It is a real proud moment as a parent and seeing him grow up in the game from a little boy playing in the yard and now representing his country is a very big thing for our family,” Chris said.
“He’s a catcher, slash, utility. His main focus is catching. As a youngster he wanted to play full games and catching is such an intense position and the ball comes hard at you all the time. No one really wants to play that position. So he played it because he wanted to play a full game of baseball and not half a game.”
The love for baseball is entrenched in the Campbell family. Chris has been playing since the age of 4.
“I am still playing Masters at the moment. I made the national team, made training squads. And also coaching at the moment, the Under-12s – the team Jack plays in,” he said.
Jack and his fellow teammates kick off their World Cup campaign against Mexico next Friday.