Ghana's national baseball team pulls out of game in Canada
It seemed improbable from the start that Ghana’s national baseball team would want to travel from west Africa to Edmonton for an exhibition game against the Prospects. Eleven-thousand kilometres for a friendly?
It comes as less of a surprise to hear that the Rising Stars of Ghana will not be arriving in Edmonton on Thursday or playing the Prospects at Re/Max Field on Monday, after all. A new federal government elected in December has apparently wrapped the visa acquisition process in thick red tape, and the team simply ran out of time to finalize its travel plans.
“It’s very disappointing, but I’m not losing hope,” said Albert K. Frimpong, president of the Ghana Baseball and Softball Association. “The policy for travelling was supposed to be simple, through the national sports council. Now the government ministry needs to approve all travel, and their decision came late.”
Following an emergency meeting of the association on Tuesday, Frimpong emailed a letter of apology to Prospects owner Patrick Cassidy and asked to reschedule the game.
“We will humbly ask for a new date in either August or September this year if you can choose one. With this new date, our new minister who has now settled into office will help us come and put up a spectacular show,” Frimpong wrote.
“Once again, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused and we ask that in the spirit of baseball you find it in your hearts to accept this apology.”
Cassidy said he was disappointed that the game had to be postponed and that the Prospects will try to find another date.
It was in the spirit of baseball that both sides tried to set up this unlikely meeting. The Ghanaians reached out halfway across the world to people they had never met, based only on some online research and a feeling that Edmonton would welcome them. They weren’t wrong.
The Prospects got on board because it offered a unique learning experience for their college-aged players and would have been valuable to the development of Ghana’s national team. So they were in it for the right reasons, too.
It now seems much less likely to come together. The Prospects’ regular season wraps up with a July 30th home game against Medicine Hat. If the Prospects make the Western Major Baseball League playoffs, as they did last year, they will be busy in August and won’t likely be inclined to squeeze in an exhibition game. By September, college players are back in college.
If it happens, great. If not, that’s a shame because the Rising Stars of Ghana would have been fun to watch, regardless of their skill level. Because they’re not just baseball players, they’re the embodiment of the improbable dream. They are the proverbial underdogs.
The Rising Stars, you see, are determined to qualify for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. And if you think getting to Edmonton for a friendly against the Prospects was an order too tall, imagine how far they have to go to make it to the five-ring circus just three years from now.
The Rising Stars are a collection of 16- to 25-year-olds who mostly play against one another, because baseball doesn’t have much of a foothold in Africa. Three players went to Japan in 2016 to get some valuable game experience, and team captain Daniel Atiemo has been to spring training with the New York Mets and spent time in Italy at Major League Baseball International’s European camp.
A friendly in Edmonton against a legitimate opponent would have broadened the entire team’s horizons, Frimpong said. And he hoped that offers to play elsewhere in Canada would have flooded in once they played their game against the Prospects.
“Yes, it would be very expensive, but in the end, it’s worth it for the exposure and the experience,” said Frimpong. “We had been searching online for a credible baseball team to play against. We checked their profile, we read lots about them and realized this is a team that would give us great competition.
“I have never been to Edmonton, but it seems a wonderful place to be, very welcoming. So we decided to pursue it.”
Frimpong has pursued the baseball dream for more than three decades and is the man chiefly responsible for the progress that has been made against such long odds. Soccer is the game of choice in Ghana. The country has but one baseball facility of any real note, and it still doesn’t have grass in the outfield. Built in 2014 with the assistance of a US$124,000 grant from the Japanese government, Koshien Field in the capital of Accra is home to the Rising Stars.
It’s more than a practice facility. It’s a monument to the hard work done by Frimpong and others, and to their belief that just three short years from now, they will be travelling halfway around the world to play baseball.