Brighton Zhawi

BASEBALL will return to the Olympic Games at Tokyo 2020 and the Zimbabwe Baseball Association is determined to be part of the mix when that happens. Baseball last featured as an Olympic sport in 2008. Zimbabwe’s journey to building a team for the Tokyo games began in the capital last weekend with the staging of the Dream Cup inter-provincial tournament for the first time in 17 years.

Hosts Harare won the tournament and provided the bulk of the 23 players selected for the national team provisional squad.

The team’s first outing will be in South Africa in April.

ZBA board member and Harare province chair Winmore Mubariri said baseball was alive and well.

“We have six active provinces – which are Harare, Gweru (Midlands), Mashonaland West, Masvingo, Mutare and Bulawayo – that are active in the sport and I can tell you that soon something will be happening in Bindura. We will hold coaching clinics and later on have officials administering that area,” he said.

ZBA intends to maximise on its relationship with the United States’ Major Super League as well as their Japanese partners as they bid to spread the game.

“Last year we wrote to the Major Super League and they responded, sending some coaches who worked here to select the best coach and athlete who later went to a camping at a high performance centre in South Africa.

“We also revived our relationship with Japan and last year we had volunteer coaches coming to help. This arrangement had stopped for some time but it’s up and running now,” said Mubariri.

All these efforts should culminate in a historic Olympic qualification, Mubariri added.

“We are waiting for confirmed details on the Olympic qualifiers and that’s something we are taking very serious. We also expecting to play in a tournament in Japan sometime this year as well as Africa Baseball and Softball Association events,” he said.