… GBL in the process of securing land

By Stephan Sookram
MOVES are afoot between a Major League Baseball (MLB) side and the Guyana Baseball League (GBL) to set up an academy and training centre in Guyana, according to president of the local chapter Robin Singh.

Singh spoke exclusively to Chronicle Sport yesterday confirming that MLB side the Baltimore Orioles, an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore, Maryland are interested in developing a facility that will house and nurture talent as well as hone players’ skills.
According to Singh, who spoke of discussions with the franchise, “If you (GBL) get your land we will build an academy here; it will not be an academy for Guyanese only but we will have guys coming from Venezuela, Colombia, the Dominican Republic to train here, because it’s a location that’s cheap in terms of cost of living and the weather is beyond great all year round.”
He noted that the franchise is willing to fund an all-weather surface with lights with his organisation asking specifically for a school and dormitory for those persons who are preparing for international tournaments.
One such country that has already benefited from facilities of this nature is the Dominican Republic, in which the Orioles as well as several other teams (Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Indians and the New York Hockey) have set up camps and Singh hopes that Guyana can be another.
“So we will have basically subsidised training at a high class facility; a dedicated field for Guyana and then three other fields for the international players who would come and play (and train) here. They (the Orioles) see this as an expansion from the Dominican Republic,” contended the GBL boss.
Moving to discussions on the land, he noted that they had secured land from the previous government close to elections but based on ethics, he humbly declined the land, stating that they would restart the process after the election period.
Currently, the body is in talks with the new government about the possibility and location of the facility, Singh saying “We’ve restarted the process of acquiring a decent-sized, 20 plus acres of land to build not only a baseball facility but other recreational facilities.”
He continued, “If you visited the Dominican Republic’s baseball academies, it’s like a Five-Star resort. It is held to a very high standard; you have dorms for kids but then you have high-end facilities because you have multimillionaire players coming to train at them as a player, not as a coach.”
Those facilities, the GBL boss noted, are not only for new talent but for established players, adding, “You could be a world class star earning $20M a year and they send you back to the academy to sharpen you up to move forward.”
“The chance to open an academy like that here can’t be missed. It’s a window of opportunity that we are in because of our local talent,” the administrator contended, adding, “They’ve seen the local talent. They have actually looked at guys’ raw talent from here and said, ‘Well, that’s a nice little place to pick players up in the future.”
He noted that it is going to benefit them in the future because whoever has the academy here in Guyana has first call at the talent.
The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the American League (AL) East division.
The Orioles experienced their greatest success from 1964 to 1983 and have won a total of nine division championships (1969–1971, 1973–1974, 1979, 1983, 1997, 2014), six pennants (1966, 1969–1971, 1979, 1983), three World Series championships (1966, 1970, 1983), two wild card berths (1996 and 2012),