Valley baseballer to go globetrotting
CALEXICO — On July 24, Alejandro Cervantes, a junior who attends Vincent Memorial Catholic High School, will be going on a little trip.
A little, 6,134-mile trip to
Italy.
There are certainly worse things to do on a summer vacation.
But Cervantes isn’t jet-setting purely for his leisure. He’ll also be putting a little work in, competing in the World Boys’ Baseball Tournament in the town of Nettuno, where he’ll be representing the region as a member of the U.S. World Baseball of San Diego team.
The World Boys’ Tournament — now in its 38th year — is a high-level international event that has its origins in a series of “Goodwill Friendship Games” held between a Japanese amateur team hosted by the San Diego Padres and a group of area all-stars back in 1977.
By 1982 the games had evolved into a full-blown tournament, with multiple countries participating, and it has been held every year since — with such luminaries as current major leaguers Kenta Maeda and Yu Darvish (for Japan) and retired All-Stars Jimmy Rollins and Dontrelle Willis (for an Alameda-based team) taking part, according to Mark Wilson, who’s been coaching the San Diego squad for the last 19 years.
This will be the second consecutive year that the Valley has players participating.
In 2018, it was Emmanuel Lopez and Luis Gracia, both from Calexico, who during the school year played for the Southwest Eagles. They helped the San Diego place fourth out of 12 teams at the 37th tournament in Sydney, Australia.
That fourth-place finish is not too shabby considering the San Diego team is comprised of 18 or so SoCal high-schoolers chosen from a pool of 60odd players in early January tryouts. They then don’t see one another for the next several months before school lets out in June, whereas a good number of the other entries in the tournament are bona fide national 16Us who “live, go to school and practice together every day,” said Wilson — as is the case with 21-time champion Japan.
Still, quality competition aside, Wilson feels that the heart of the tournament is still centered on the same locus of cultural exchange it was at the start.
“The baseball part … that’s not what it’s about,” he said. “It’s about all about the cultural experience and foreign exchange. At the beginning [players from opposing teams] are eyeballing each other from a distance … but by the end they’re friends.”
Lopez and Gracia certainly had an eye-opening experience last year, wondering at everything from the absence of kangaroos on every Australian street corner, to the size and ferocity of the South Korean sluggers who sent them packing in the semifinals.
Cervantes has some prior international experience, having competed for Mexico in the Cal Ripken World Series in Baltimore at the 12U level, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less excited to be headed off to the Old World in a few days.
“It’s really fun,” Cervantes said of competing against topflight players from abroad. “You really want to show them that you’re better, so you play hard.”
He says he’s especially looking forward to the opportunity to soak in the rich history of the Italian landscape, particularly in Rome, where the team will have a few days to explore before heading to Nettuno.
Coach Wilson said that Cervantes profiles as San Diego’s “No. 1 second baseman” and a “very good player,” expecting him to make solid contributions on the diamond.
The tournament itself begins on Aug. 1 and runs through the Aug. 7.