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Uganda Makes Little League Baseball
History
Uganda Little League Team Photo at Kutno Poland - July 2008
July 2009
Uganda Little League held the annual
National Little League Championship Tournaments from May 28 thru June 14, 2009.
We started with the 13-14 year olds, went to the 17-18 year olds, then the 15-16
year olds and finally the 11-12 year olds. Each tournament was four days of
playing games, and required the teams to play 4 games in the first three days
and then the consolation games and championship games were played on the fourth
day. We had teams come from the west, Mbarara, the north, Lira and Luwero, and
the east, Jinja, besides Kampala. The games were being filmed by a team from
New York looking to produce a 5 or 10 minute video that will be used to raise
money for a full length documentary film which will be shot over the next 14
months. The expectation is that they will follow a player through the coaches
training program that Major League Baseball will conduct at the complex in
January 2010, the National Tournament to be held next June, the Middle
East/Africa Little League Regional Tournament next July, and hopefully on to the
Little League World Series next August. We will let you know when it is done
and when it might be appearing in a theater near you.
For the first time, we held a
tournament for 17 and 18 year olds this year. Our biggest disappointment during
our tournaments was the lack of girl softball teams that came. While a team of
17-18 year olds wanted to come, we could not get a team for them to play
against. Therefore, we asked them not to come this year. The same thing was
true for the 11-12 year olds and the 13-14 year old girls. The only girl
tournament held this year was for the 15-16 year olds. The girl tournaments
were to be held at the same time as the boys tournaments of the same age group.
We will now work on getting more girl teams playing in time for next year and
the future.
During the first week of August, we
will be hosting an All Africa Tournament for 11 and 12 year old boys. We will
be hosting teams from Tanzania, South Sudan, and Kenya. Teams from Cameroon and
Ghana have indicated their desire to participate, but were uncertain about their
funding. Hopefully they will come. The championship game for this tournament
will be held on August 8, 2010.
Now that the complex has several
fields to play on, local children have come to the fields and have asked if they
could learn to play. We are now working with the local population to form the
Mpigi Little League, which will be open to girls and boys of all ages. We will
keep you informed about our progress with this league.
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