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| Rustic ballfield (Terry McCoy | For the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) |
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| Shoeless batter (Terry McCoy | For the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) |
By Terry McCoy
FOR THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
KAMPONG THOM, Cambodia -- Out in the flat plains of central Cambodia, an unmistakable sound rises above a din of screaming motorcycles and grunting water buffaloes.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
To Chun Heng, 16, the sound carries something exotic and addicting. It's hard to explain, he says underneath his stilted wooden hut, firing another fastball at a brick retaining wall and gloving the ricochet. Thwack! That's what makes baseball, at its purest, beautiful to Chun. No thinking required: throw, catch, hit, run. In these moments he can forget that he's bad at school, that he sleeps on a wooden floor, that he has no real prospects for success.
Baseball is baseball, even in rural Cambodia -- where despite little American influence, crushing heat and a cultural apathy toward most things new or foreign, America's pastime has forged into the countryside. Since 2005, four baseball fields have sprouted in places that once were rice paddies, sparking a smattering of grassroots baseball programs across the provinces.
Please click here to read more...
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
To Chun Heng, 16, the sound carries something exotic and addicting. It's hard to explain, he says underneath his stilted wooden hut, firing another fastball at a brick retaining wall and gloving the ricochet. Thwack! That's what makes baseball, at its purest, beautiful to Chun. No thinking required: throw, catch, hit, run. In these moments he can forget that he's bad at school, that he sleeps on a wooden floor, that he has no real prospects for success.
Baseball is baseball, even in rural Cambodia -- where despite little American influence, crushing heat and a cultural apathy toward most things new or foreign, America's pastime has forged into the countryside. Since 2005, four baseball fields have sprouted in places that once were rice paddies, sparking a smattering of grassroots baseball programs across the provinces.
Please click here to read more...
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