Photo By Staff Sgt. Danielle Prentice | Ryo Yoshimoto, Nippon Professional Baseball coach of the SoftBank Hawks, hits fly...... read more read more
Subscribe
Oki-Am Kai hosted a youth baseball clinic Jan. 22 aboard Camp Kinser.
Oki-Am Kai is an organization that works to bring the local community and the military community on Okinawa together through events such as this clinic.
“I like how the clinic brings the cultures together,” said Keiichi Hirano, coach of the Hanshin Tigers, who returned this year to assist with the clinic. “It’s nice being able to contribute to the connection of the two cultures through baseball by coming out and coaching kids.”
For this year’s clinic, Oki-Am Kai invited both Hirano, and Ryo Yoshimoto, SoftBank Hawks Coach, who taught the kids base running fundamentals such as, stealing bases and how to round first base faster. They also taught fielding fundamentals by showing players how to throw accurately, and to catch better.
"I was excited at the opportunity to come on a U.S. military base and teach baseball,” said Yoshimoto, coach of the SoftBank Hawks. “It's a great experience. It’s good to see the American and Japanese kids are able to play together.”
The youth teams which attended this year’s clinic first met two years ago, and bringing them together again was a success according to Gunnery Sgt. Jose Vega, coach of the youth baseball team aboard Camp Kinser.
"Baseball is a big part of Japanese and American culture,” said Vega, a San Benito, Texas, native, and second time participant of the clinic, “and inviting them to come onto our field, and practice with us is a great community builder.”
U.S. Consul General Joel Ehrendreich is a baseball enthusiast who attended the clinic for the first time to see how it worked.
"Baseball is a sport in which we can come together even with the language barrier," said Ehrendreich, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, native. “We can all play and learn it together, because even though we speak different languages, the sport is played the same.”
| Date Taken: | 01.22.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 01.25.2017 00:49 |
| Story ID: | 221222 |
| Location: | CAMP KINSER, OKINAWA, JP |
| Web Views: | 95 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Japan Nippon Professional Baseball coaches attend Oki-Am Kai baseball clinic on Camp Kinser, by SSgt Danielle Prentice, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
