Guam Cal Ripken Baseball League hopes to take a swing in the CNMI

After the CNMI’s youth were deprived of consistent baseball for five years, the Saipan Little League Baseball finally started just last weekend, while another baseball league hopes to take a swing here in the CNMI—the Cal Ripken Baseball League Babe Ruth Inc.

The Guam Cal Ripken Baseball League, which has been in existence there for 56 years, held a presentation and introduction of their nonprofit organization on Wednesday night at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium conference room for the CNMI baseball community and organization leaders, with the goal of creating more opportunities for youth to play baseball.

The presentation was led by Cal Ripken 12U president Roke Alcantara Jr., league commissioner Roke Alcantara Sr., and assistant commissioner Joe Young.

In attendance were Saipan Baseball League president Jay Santos, NMI Softball Association president Froilan Camacho, representatives from the Natibu Sports Association, National Baseball Team manager Jay Kintol, and baseball officials and umpires.

The league’s mission as stated in their flyer that they passed out in the presentation, is “to provide boys and girls between the ages of 4 through 18 years a wholesome physical fitness environment while enhancing character development, team building and sportsmanship skills.”

Alcantara Jr. presented the history of the league, the different divisions and rules, and opened the floor to questions and comments.

He mentioned a few times that, “we’re not here to compete, nor are we here to say ‘choose sides.’ Our intention is to coexist.”

Santos made some comments during the presentation and said, “I’m very glad that this is available for the CNMI and for Saipan, but I am concerned that it’ll hurt our friends at Saipan Little League Baseball more than help—maybe—that’s to be seen. Little League usually starts in February and tries to push and get it done in June… for me, I would love to be able to get involved with something like this… and to provide more baseball opportunities for our youth without having to hurt anybody along the way.”

He then said, “if this happens, all I hope is that we can coexist and not have one league more dominant than the other.”

In an interview with Marianas Press after the presentation, Alcantara Jr. said the purpose of their visit was to “promote, introduce, and hopefully implement our organization—the Guam Ripken Babe Ruth Inc. in hopes to create more games, more opportunity for the NMI kids. We want to have them even possibly get some international competition or travel to the states to compete in regional tournaments. But more importantly, we want to get the younger kids involved right away—the 4-6 T-Ball, the 7-8 rookie pitching machine—we want to get those kids started so we can get them ready for the future of the sport, which is the next level.”

When asked why they decided to try to push out this program in the CNMI at this time, he said, “We've been talking about this for two years now. We’ve been contemplating and sitting on it for too long and we just finally decided, ‘let’s make the trip, let’s get the word out there, and hopefully get it going, and get it started. If we had pulled the trigger two years ago, we probably would have already developed it right? But there’s no specific reason why—we just feel like we’re behind. We’ve had Cal Ripken/Babe Ruth in Guam for 57 years and it’s about time we bring it here to NMI, so the kids can get the same experience and the same opportunity they’re getting in Guam.”

The difference between Cal Ripken/Babe Ruth and Little League, Alcantara Jr said, is a few game rules, and the regional tournaments are different. Little League travels in Asia, while Cal Ripken travels in the U.S. He said, “I know Little League has their 9-12 division, but we have two divisions within that age group—a 9-10 and an 11-12… we definitely want Little League to keep thriving and we want the kids to have more baseball, more competition, more opportunity, and more experience.”

Tomorrow, Friday, March 21, the league is hosting a batting practice at the newly opened Marianas Batting Alley in GualoRai. It’s for kids aged 4-12 from 5pm to 6pm and kids aged 13-18 from 6pm-7pm.

Babe Ruth Inc. was founded in 1951 in Hamilton, New Jersey. It was divided into age groups 4-12 known as Bambino, and age groups 13-18 known as Babe Ruth. Bambino was renamed Cal Ripken in 1999 to recognize the shared vision and philosophy of former professional baseball players Cal Ripken Sr. and Jr. along with George Herman “Babe” Ruth Jr.

Guam is part of the Pacific Southwest Region that consists of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Hawaii, and American Samoa.