Play Ball: Wilton man passes on his love of baseball to Bhutan's youth

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WILTON — A love of baseball has taken 30-year-old Matt DeSantis to a place about as far as one can go from his native Wilton, a place literally on the other side of the world.

In 2013, DeSantis was asked by Prince Jigyel Ugyen Wangchuck, the president of the Bhutan Olympic Committee -- whom he already knew -- to help develop baseball in the Southern Asia country at the eastern end of the Himalayas.

DeSantis, who is back in Wilton for two weeks before returning to Bhutan on Tuesday, took some time last Thursday to talk to The Hour about his experience.

Long before DeSantis even knew where Bhutan was on a map -- it is bordered to the north by China and to the south, east and west by India -- he was part of big baseball family in Wilton.

His three younger brothers --- Nick, Michael and Will -- all played for Tim Eagen at Wilton High School.

Will graduated last month and capped his career at Wilton by playing on the Warriors' team that won its first FCIAC baseball championship in 20 years.

However, Matt DeSantis attended Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, where he played baseball for four years and served as a captain during his senior year.

At Choate, DeSantis met Wangchuck, who also was a student there, while they were playing basketball and they became close friends.

With family in the New York area, Wangchuck -- the half brother of Bhutan's current King -- often was a guest at the DeSantis' home in Wilton.

"At a young age, he was a nice guy to open my eyes to the outside world," DeSantis said.

Wangchuck would tell DeSantis about how peaceful his native county was and over time, DeSantis became intrigued.

Finally, in 2010, DeSantis visited Bhutan for the first time, roaming around the country for two weeks strictly as a tourist, but something clicked inside.

"It's a very untouched part of the world," DeSantis said. "It's very protected from outside influence. They follow this motto called gross national happiness. Aside from GDP (Gross Daily Product), that's how they drive all of their government decisions.

"Does it meet the pillars of gross national happiness? Those consist of socioeconomic and environmental sustainability, so when you're there, you really feel this connection that they have with their own people and with their surroundings. It's pretty beautiful."

In 2006, based on a global survey, Business Week rated Bhutan as the happiest country in Asia and the eighth-happiest country in the world. Bhutan is believed to be the only nation in the world that has a happiness rating.

It seems that DeSantis' life has been guided by a spirit of adventure and before arriving back in Bhutan in September of 2013, he and a friend, Misha Greenberg, spent 41 days hiking through the Pyrenees Mountains in France and Spain, starting at the Atlantic Ocean and ending at the Mediterranean Sea.

They tried to follow a guide written by an individual who had hiked through the highest parts of the Pyrenees numerous times, but found the book was outdated.

"We'd go two weeks sometimes without seeing another human," DeSantis said. "Occasionally, you'd run into paths but for the most part we were going on our own trail."

After DeSantis returned to Bhutan, he started working for the Bhutan Olympic Committee.

Will DeSantis helped his older brother by organizing a fundraiser in which he collected old baseball equipment that was sent to Bhutan. Eagen also was involved in the effort.

Before DeSantis' arrival, a Japanese group had been teaching baseball in Bhutan to a group of about 20 kids every other week for six months.

Baseball was introduced into the country in the 1990s by a group of Bhutanese who would play pick-up games every other week but, according to DeSantis, the initiative only lasted about a year.

DeSantis found that many of the children he instructed were sons of the original founders of the sport in the country.

He and his group combined forces with the Japanese people to conduct coaching clinics every day for four months for about 400 kids ranging in ages from 6 to 18. The group also put together some exhibition games.

Archery is the national sport in Bhutan while soccer and basketball also are popular. Baseball, as one might imagine, is pretty primitive.

An early problem DeSantis encountered is that the balls would break because the clinics would be on concrete, or get thrown into a river.

To get more balls, camp organizers would have to travel to Bangkok in Thailand

Still, DeSantis thought the kids caught on the game quickly enough and in the spring of 2014, an adult league consisting of three clubs was formed, one of which was the Bhutanese national cricket team.

At that point, DeSantis was able to find a grass field about 10 minutes outside the capital city of Thimpu in which to play the games.

With Bhutan looking to be recognized by the International Baseball Federation, it was contacted by the Nepal national team, which was interested in playing a series of exhibition games.

DeSantis helped put together a national team, though the exhibition contests with Nepal were postponed until next year because of the civil unrest in that country.

Hitters are way ahead of the pitchers as there are no Matt Harveys or Jacob DeGroms in Bhutan.

Most of the members of the national team have batting averages in excess of .500, which is akin to slow pitch softball in the U.S.

"We're working on lowering the ERAs," DeSantis joked.

While DeSantis and his group have been training the national team members, those older players have been coaching the kids, creating more of a support system.

Largely through DeSantis' efforts, the inaugural Bhutan National Baseball League for youth players also began last July and now has eight teams.

The second season is set to get under way in August.

The government has granted the league land in a prime location in Thimphu, so the final piece is finding someone to build the first actual baseball field in Bhutan.

"We have everything but the group that wants to sponsor building the field," DeSantis said. "Once we get that, they'll become the lifetime partner of the baseball federation in Bhutan, and once that happens, the sport starts receiving government funding."

After receiving an economics degree from Holy Cross and an engineering degree from Columbia, DeSantis helped Bhutan from afar by providing high level IT management and consulting advice, which was his background since he spent five years working for Accenture, a technology services company.

"We taught and did the IT stuff, so it was refining the business processes of the BOC, and then coaching baseball," he said.

Initially, DeSantis figured he would stay three to six months but he branched out and now, in addition to teaching baseball, his efforts in Bhutan are geared toward social enterprise.

Last year, DeSantis started an organization called MyBhutan, a travel platform designed to support the philanthropic activities of the Tarayana Foundation, a non-profit organization in Bhutan founded by Queen Mother Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck.

"Our ultimate goal, aside from being the leader in providing philanthropic support to Bhutan, is to create a model to be used by other developing countries as policy framework to be implemented to prevent extreme wealth and income inequality as globalization continues to expand," DeSantis said.

During the week, DeSantis spends all his time working on the MyBhutan project, meaning coaching baseball is limited to the weekends. He and a few Bhutanese discussed their idea with the government.

Greenberg did not teach baseball and left Bhutan to return to the U.S. after helping out with the IT work for three months, but there are 30-40 internationals in Bhutan to assist DeSantis and his team.

"Tourism is the leading industry in Bhutan and the idea was that we could create social enterprises and this tourism platform that we're building would be one of them," DeSantis said. "We want to build this in Bhutan and show it as a model to other developing countries."

Still, it was baseball that led DeSantis to Bhutan in the first place.

"I personally believe that it was getting so connected to the kids through baseball that made me feel that Bhutan was a place I really wanted to help grow," he said

He's not sure if he's going to spend the rest of his life in Bhutan, but for now it is home.

The journey back home will take 22 hours, including a 17-hour flight to Bangkok, followed by a four-hour flight to Bhutan and a one-hour drive to his residence in Thimphu.