Cambodian ball players turn rice paddy into Field of Dreams

KRAING KHMER, Cambodia (AP) - A bush serves as a marker for home runs. Motorcycles laden with goods cruise by second base, and rice planters and water buffaloes look on as a ragtag collection of players embrace America's pastime. What was once a rice paddy in steamy, rural Cambodia has been cleared to make a ball park where the children and young adults of Kraing Khmer village compete each day in the impoverished country's first foray into baseball.

The spectacle of young villagers wearing a hodgepodge of uniforms donated by Americans, tossing balls and practising swings is the brainchild of Joe Cook, a Cambodian-American living in Dothan, Ala., who introduced baseball to his homeland two years ago.

"You can see the kids, so inspired with the game of baseball. Without that, they have no hope," said Cook, a 35-year-old chef. "They don't have proper uniforms or just wear flip-flops, or go barefoot ... but baseball is baseball, it doesn't matter if you're barefoot or flip-flopped."

Cambodia is one of the world's poorest countries, with the World Bank estimating that 42 per cent of its nearly 15 million people live on $1 a day or less.

Baseball followers would be hard-pressed to find a glove or bat available for sale in the country, much less be able to afford it.

Cook has spent about $37,000 of his money to bring baseball to the Kraing Khmer youth. His efforts include building a local house for visiting baseball coaches and orphans who want to learn the sport, sending videos of baseball games to the players and collecting donated equipment from many southern states for the northwest Cambodia village that has no running water or electricity.

Cook landed in Tennessee at age 12 as a refugee fleeing the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, blamed for the deaths of nearly two million Cambodians during the late 1970s.

He took up baseball as a way to learn English, make friends and fit into his new American setting.

When he returned to Cambodia a few years ago to unite with a sister he believed had perished under the Khmer Rouge, he saw children who had to work on rice farms or tend to the family livestock, such as water buffaloes.

Cook wanted to share with them a sport that had given him motivation, confidence and a sense of professionalism.

"I see in their eyes. I look around and they need hope and they need opportunity," said Cook who speaks with a Southern drawl and whose legal name is Joeurt Puk. "They need to understand about other cultures, other countries, what is offered to them, what they can become."

The players also send Cook stats and videos of their games so he can coach them by phone and the Internet.

"When Mr. Joe talked about baseball, we were surprised. This is strange for us because there was no baseball in Cambodia. We never heard about this sport before," Poun Phybo, a 23-year-old local, said through a translator.

"Everybody, all of us wanted to try it and then we were part of baseball," he said. "Then, in our minds, it was like we fell in love with baseball."

Last week, Major League Baseball officials and U.S. coaches visited the village as part of its foreign outreach program, handing out crisp leather gloves, shiny bats, helmets and other gear.

"Every year, we'll do five or six donations of equipment to people like Joe Cook," said Jim Small, vice-president of market development for MLB International. "Places where, you know, baseball's not established but they need a little bit of equipment and we can put it in the hands of people like Joe Cook, that we trust that the stuff's going to go into the right hands and help kick-start baseball."

Small acknowledged that Cambodia probably wouldn't have been on MLB's radar if not for Cook.

"The world's so big and there's only so many things that you can do to get baseball started," Small said. "We had no choice, we had to get involved. When you hear about what he's done and the fact that he's made such a commitment because he loves baseball, you can't turn your back on someone like that."

The American coaches schooled dozens of youngsters, some wearing a mix-match of jerseys, caps, cleats or pants donated by American high schools and universities. Others donned T-shirts, pants or flip-flops - typical footwear in the Southeast Asian country.

Bill Thomas, assistant coach at California Polytechnic State University, led the youngsters through fielding drills and called out encouragement.

"The players are great, enthusiastic," he said. "They're just like sponges trying to absorb as much as they can," Thomas said.

© The Canadian Press, 2005