Two-day baseball tournament for Bulawayo

Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Baseball Association (ZBA) is set to host a two-day provincial tournament at Hamilton High School in Bulawayo over the weekend.

Bulawayo province will battle it out with Masvingo and Midlands in the men’s and women’s categories.
Newly-elected ZBA president Thembani Moyo said this is one of many competitions his executive had lined-up in their quest to revive baseball.

Moyo succeeded Morris Banda and he is deputised by John Madziro and Eldon Mudzingwa, with Vincent Chaima as secretary-general and Nhlanhla Mlauzi as treasurer.

Other board members include Nyaradzo Marijena, Sheila Chikovi, Winmore Mubariri, Thomas Mahachi, Trust Masayiti and Shepherd Sibanda.

“We would like to focus on grassroots and get the little ones playing the sport and identify talent from a tender age, just like how I was introduced to the sport when I was in primary school.

“We also want to turn our focus on schools and grow our club base across the nation, as we grow in numbers.

“This will help us to have a large pool from which we can select players to represent the nation and play competitively,” said Moyo.

He said they will also be paying particular attention to the new version of the game, baseball5.

“We have introduced baseball5, which is a mini-version of the traditional baseball and is played by all ages. This will help us reach to most parts of the country.

“Our focus is also getting youths involved in the sport. This will help keep them away from the streets and away from known dangers currently affecting our nation. Our other focus is to improve in sport governance as this is key in the success of sport in the nation,” he said.

Zimbabwe was mainly dedicated to softball for a decade after independence, but in 1990 Malcom Burne introduced baseball in the country, as president of the association.

In 2007, Zimbabwe’s baseball and softball bodies split and the country participated in the All-Africa Games in 1999, 2003 and 2007 where they won bronze medals in all three editions.

In 2019, Zimbabwe participated in the Africa Baseball Championship and again won bronze. – @innocentskizoe