New plans to promote Baseball in Sri Lanka

Bernard PERERA

The newly elected President of the Sri Lanka Baseball Association Higher Education Minister S B Dissanayake has drawn up a new program to promote and popularize the game in Sri Lanka. This was disclosed to the media on Sunday at the Sports Ministry Auditorium.

Speaking, the minister said that Baseball is a sport played in almost all developed countries like America and Japan. The sport is a costly one for as we are beginners of the sport. But with the assistance promised by these two countries we will be able to promote baseball in Sri Lanka.

Every sport in this country had ups and downs due to various reasons but once things are put in the right spot things can come right. Baseball was started in Sri Lanka few years back but due to lack of finance the sport could not progress as expected. Finances play a vital role when it come promoting sport.

In the past Sri Lankan cricket too faced the problem, with the arrival of the World Cup in 1996 it took a different turn specially with money coming in. This helped a lot for the promotion of the game. The same happened in athletics too.

Most of the athletes who brought glory to the country were from the outstations. We can be proved of them. This sport too should be taken to the rural level. First we should approach the schools and give the masters in charge of these schools training for them to select the talent. This is vital as the sportsmen has to be picked from their young age to put them in to the right track on the particular sport.

The problem we have in Sri Lanka is the lack of proper grounds to play the game of baseball. Dissanayake said that as Minister of Higher Education I will do my best to introduce the sport to the universities where they have land space availability. For the moment we are planning to introduce artificial grounds to play the game until we prepare playing fields for the game.

He further said that to implement these plans finances has to be sought.

The committee at present is discussing details to market the sport and to find sponsors. We in Sri Lanka see almost every sport has big sponsors. Why they come forward is that they set the mileage they expect. It becomes a duty for the committee to expand the sport to all parts of the country to attract sponsors. If we do a job to satisfy them we can be sure of sponsors coming forward to help us.

He further added that he will use all his influence to attract sponsors while also trying to get the necessary guidance and the support from the world governing body to improve the sport here.

Already the Japanese Baseball Association has consented to support our cause. On this day baseball equipment too were handed over to the national pool which is coached by.