Winter sports haven

Cebu has positioned itself in many ways to attract foreign visitors. We once just talked of tourists who came for our beaches and then later on talked about those coming over for investment in our export processing zones.

In recent years, we started talking of sports tourism and then medical tourism. I'm sure the ideas are aplenty and as somebody, who is very proud of my Cebuano roots, I look forward to the fruits of these promotions to spur economic development in our beloved province.

While we once thought of sports tourism on a per event basis, I recently learned that there are some groups, who are interested to come over for a much longer period of sports activities.

I am referring to the baseball teams in Japan, which are looking for places to hold their winter training.

These teams currently spend the winter months in some of the Pacific islands and spend the team's money there.

Though baseball's popularity in our country has been waning for a very long period, I believe that by luring the baseball teams to Cebu to set up their training facility would be a move that's worth pursuing.

I got information that these teams would spend money to build the facility, but would use it only for about four months in a year when they cannot train in their home base due to winter.

If arrangements can be made for a local baseball or softball group to operate the facility in the eight months that the foreign teams would be away, then this shall be a major boost to batted sports. This could also hopefully lead to a new breed of Overseas Filipino Workers - professional baseball players.

If you follow the Major League in the US, there are many South American players, who are raking in millions of dollars by playing the game they love. Why can't we also do it?

If we have foreign teams coming over for training, this will give our local batters a chance to also hone their skills further and probably get discovered by scouts.

The first step would probably be playing pro baseball in Asian countries like Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. The Major League can come later.

Cebu is known as a hotbed for batted sports. In fact, we have enshrined several top national baseball and softball players in the Cebu Sports Hall of Fame.

Maybe we can also look into luring their football teams to build their winter training facilities in our country.

In fact, many Korean golf students now spend the winter months in the Philippines.

* * *

MILESTONE: I'd like to bid Concepcion Lorelei 'Elay' de Gracia a happy and safe trip as she heads back to New York tomorrow after attending the silver jubilee reunion of our elementary class.

We will definitely miss Elay's contagious laughter, but more than that, we will also look forward to her return in the coming years for our future activities.

See you again soon!