Tema Royals Club hold Ashaiman Ambassadors in 2022 end-of-year baseball clash

The 2022 End-of-Year Baseball Game between Tema Royals Club and Ashaiman Ambassadors was played at Tema Sports Stadium and ended in a tie after three innings.

The teams set the field on fire in the first inning of the game with massive straights to curve balls to retire their opposing batters.

The game became more interesting when the Royals team chose a female - Jacqueline Amponsah - to ride the mount against the Ambassadors' batters.
She kept the players in check, and within two minutes of the second inning, three of them were struck out.

The game, themed "Together We Can," was organized with the help of the National Sports Authority (NSA) and the Greater Accra Secretariat of the sport.

The goal was to foster closer relationships with all of the active teams and partners involved in the game.

The Deputy Director of the National Sports Authority (NSA), Greater Accra Secretariat, Mr Ignatius Elletey, said the author­ity’s mandate was to collaborate with all sporting disciplines under them and find ways to support their growth in the region.



Mr Elletey said baseball and softball were one of the many disciplines that many children enjoy in the region especially in Tema and was excited the regional body was focusing on harnessing the skills and talent of the youth.



He thanked the Japanese government, the community and the Japanese International Cor­poration Agency (JICA) for the support in sports development.



He urged the representative of the Ambassador of Japan, Ms Yuriya Teragaki, and JICA to make the construction of a base­ball facility in Tema part of their 2023 and 2024 plans.



The Metro Sports Director for Tema Municipal Assembly (TMA), Davis A. Copperfield, urged the organisers to involve the schools, especially the public schools as they aim to make the sport popular.



Mr Yoshinori Wada, Volunteer Coordinator at the Japan Inter­national Corporation Agency (JICA) Ghana, said his outfit was supporting a number of sports disciplines including baseball.

Ms Yuriya Teragaki, the First Secretary for Public Relations and Culture Affairs at the Japan Embassy who represented the Ambassador of Japan, Mochizuki Hisanobu, pledges his outfit’s support to develop sports in Ghana.

The Chairman of GRABSA, Hugo Banzini, said the game has been in the region for a long time but lacks the necessary individual and corporate support to push it to blossom.

“Greater Accra is the heart beat of baseball, especially in Tema and few places in Accra but the game is not flourishing due to financial challenges and lack of logistical support from corporate bodies and individuals,” he said.

Mr Banzini said another factor hindering the development of the twin sport in the region and the country as a whole was the lack of public schools participation.

source: Ghanaian Times