The Little Razcals
It was a cool and breezy morning just a few days before Christmas when my son, nephew, and I arrived at Barangay Altura Bata, a small town with only about 1,200 residents in Tanauan City, Batangas. As we turned left from the town’s main street and entered a short dirt road, our car narrowly escaped getting stuck in a mud trap. After a few anxious moments, we emerged into a large clearing and saw a homemade baseball field that shined like a diamond in the rough. It was a scene straight out of the 1989 Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams. This field, however, was by no means as neatly groomed as the one that Costner’s character built in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa. And although you could actually get a glimpse of the luxurious houses and manicured greens of Tagaytay Highlands in the distant heights, the field was as raw as the rural countryside. The two dugouts along first and third base were only like makeshift sheds. One of them was barricaded by a group of goats. The infield was a bit rough and uneven. It sloped slightly downwards towards right field where a row of low-cost houses stood as easy targets of errant foul balls. On the opposite side, a small sugar cane plantation marked the end of left field. The grass in center field was already starting to get a little high and several stray dogs frolicked there as if challenging one of the batters to try to hit a homerun towards them. (Later that morning, one of them sauntered up to third base and claimed it as his territory by marking it in the usual manner that dogs do!) The young boys who were already busily catching fly balls and swinging their bats before we arrived ran up immediately to welcome us. Before I knew it, my son and nephew had disappeared from my side and reappeared as if by magic on the field with the other boys. There was a distinct purity and innocence to it all that I found simply mesmerizing.
My son and nephew had been selected to be part of a Philippine Tot Baseball 10 (years old) and under team that would represent the country at the Pony Baseball Asia Pacific Zone Mustang Division Championship on January 13-16 in Hanoi, Vietnam. Should they win the title, they would then go off and represent the Asia Pacific region at the Pony International World Series in Texas this coming August. Of the 15 members of the team, seven are from Manila and eight are from Tanauan, which is why practices are alternately done in Manila and Batangas. If Tanauan is widely acknowledged as one of the hotbeds of baseball talent in the Philippines, then Barangay Altura Bata can be considered as the epicenter. Before coming over, we were advised that should we get lost, we only needed to mention baseball and the people would point us right away to Altura Bata. Most of the Tanauan kids in the team are from this small barangay, which has produced many ballplayers who have gone on to play in the UAAP. Some have even become members of the men’s national team. Indeed, the barangay has its own baseball program that starts as early as coach-pitch age (seven years and under). The people I spoke to there claim that all their coaches are homegrown, too, and that they work for free and on a voluntary basis. They say that baseball helps build their children’s character and keeps them out of trouble. It also offers the kids opportunities for college scholarships when they get older. One old-timer complained, however, that computers and video games are now giving them stiff competition in getting the kids’ attention.
The parents and coaches of the team thought that Azkals (derived from Asong Kalye which is slang for stray dog) would have been a great nickname for the team. But since the national men’s football team has already adopted the name, we decided to call the boys the Razcals instead. It’s a play between Azkals and The Little Rascals, which was a popular American comedy series during the 1920s-1950s about a group of neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. The series was noted for letting the children act in a natural way and for showing kids of different races and social status together in a group as equals. I think that it’s a very apt description of our motley group of Batangueño and Manileño boys who share a common love for baseball and who immediately hit it off with one another the very first time they met. Now, my son has even developed his very own Batangueño accent!
Like many Filipinos, I love basketball. And I do hope that football, volleyball, and other sports get the support that they deserve. But there is something unique in baseball, particularly in little league or tot baseball, that I have not found in other sports. It’s hard to describe it, but I could feel something mystical in my gut as I stood in the open countryside and watched the kids play their hearts out with a ball, glove, and bat. And it’s not just in Tanauan. It’s also there in fields in Smokey Mountain, Pampanga, Laguna, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, and Cainta, among others. I felt it palpably again the other day at the Sto. Niño baseball field in Marikina when 10 boys, two girls, and about seven adult supporters from Antipolo somehow squeezed themselves into a single owner-type jeep just so that they could come and play baseball. It is a spirit worth nurturing and one that the Razcals will certainly bring with them with pride to Vietnam for the entire world to see.
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