Sarasota’s Jeff Howard and Al Goldis get opportunity to start baseball program in Haiti and develop Olympic team

In Jeff Howard’s dream, the images are definable and identifiable. The owner of Sarasota’s Extra Innings knows his location in the dream, even the clothes he’s wearing.

A baseball jersey with “Haiti” stitched on the front, a look that might turn heads on the streets of Paris, the venue for the 2024 Olympics.

And in this dream, the former Riverview High baseball player particularly likes the title of “Coach” before his name. The head coach of the first-ever Haitian Olympic baseball team.

“If it comes to fruition – which I’m telling you it’s going to be because I’m excited about it – we’re going to be the Olympic coaches in 2024,” Howard said.

“I want to be in the Olympics. I want to be able to see little eyes staring at the television, watching their country. That would make me feel good.”

It’s the top of the first inning of a nine-inning game, but Howard and longtime MLB executive Al Goldis have been hired by the government of Haiti’s Baseball and Softball Association to start the country’s first national competition team and youth development program.

Howard, who will serve as general manager and acting director of the Association, will be joined by the 77-year-old Goldis, the director of player development and program infrastructure. The two worked together last year with the Sarasota Cat 5 team in the first-year Florida Gulf Coast League summer college baseball league.

“I talked to Al before I even considered it,” Howard said. “I couldn’t do it without him. I’m going to need his knowledge. I’m going to need his background. I’m the legs, I’m the energy. I’m taking care of everything and he’s the connections.”

“My job,” Goldis said, “is to help put the program together.”

Howard received a 10-year contract to develop youth baseball in the country and a Haitian national competition team to compete in events such as the Olympics and Pan American Games.

“I got four years (until the Olympics),” Howard said. “I’m going to make it happen. I could see that as my legacy. It sounds crazy, but I love it.”

Unlike the Dominican Republic, Panama, Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela, countries once occupied by American military forces that embraced the baseball played during the troops’ time there, Haiti did not.

The country’s first occupation by the “Yankees” lasted from 1915-1934. When the United States left, Haiti disavowed itself of anything related to its stay.

“They kicked America from the country and said, ‘We don’t like the Americans,’ ” said Ernso Pierre, a 35-year-old Haitian-born and American-schooled married husband of four who was instrumental in getting Howard the job.

“They refused to learn the game. They refused to play the game. They said we don’t do anything that will remind us of the Americans.”

But other countries embraced baseball and it led to economic advancements. And while Haiti did not, in the 1970s and 1980s as many as 10 baseball factories in and around Port-au-Prince exported annually more than 20 million baseballs.

Without any baseball infrastructure, Haitian boys who wanted to play baseball would cross the border into Dominican Republic.

Promising players would be enticed by the opportunity to learn the sport at a baseball academy. The parents would be brought over as well, and if the player improved enough to sign a contract with a big-league club, the academy would get a percentage of it.

Finally, Pierre said, Haiti simply got “jealous.”

“We are so regretful for not accepting that game when the ‘Yankees’ gave it to us,” he said. “But there is still time.”

An online meeting between Howard and Pierre, who knew Haiti wished to start a baseball program and who in 2015 began advising young Haitian players, led to Pierre developing trust in a man he had never met.

“I contacted people and everyone would ask how much they were going to make,” he said. “What is my cut? Jeff Howard was the only person who never asked for a cut. Never asked me how much he was going to make from this project. And then I thought, automatically, he’s the guy.”

Armed with Howard’s commitment, Pierre spoke to Gardy Cyriaque Prophete, the president of the Haitian Baseball and Softball Association. Pierre secured from him an official letter and the power to bring baseball to the country.

“All they need is a guy like me,” Pierre said, “a guy like Jeff Howard and a guy like Al Goldis.”

Obstacles exist. While Haiti has committed 200 acres in Port-au-Prince to build a facility and the manpower to get it done, the country hasn’t agreed to contribute any cash to the project.

“It’s going to be me raising funds,” Howard said. Goldis said he’s contacted MLB about baseball in Haiti “and they are behind it 100 percent.” Howard said he’s spoken to the Clinton Foundation “and they sound interested.”

Howard’s already been to Haiti, which has youth baseball programs poorly run and operated by locals.

“I spent time and I had four kids 15 years old who were throwing 90 mph or better,” he said. “I spent some time with the kids and I fell in love. Mad love.”

A baseball field capable of hosting international competition must be built. Howard wants to hold tryouts in Miami – Olympic players just need to have Haitian descent – and even Montreal, which he said has the largest population of Haitians outside Haiti.

“There’s got to be one arm in the pack,” said the 49-year-old father of three who won’t earn a paycheck for doing this. Money isn’t what has Jeff Howard excited to open his eyes every morning.

“When I look at it,” he said, “give me another instance where a guy like me, with no baseball track record for the most part, would have a chance to bring an infancy program into the Olympics?

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”