Awesome, teens!
If life is like a game, what kind of game do you want it to be?
I hope it's baseball.
Everyone in this game gets their own place, and there is no need to chase the same set goal, and thousands of troops are crowded onto the canoe bridge.
Text/Cao Yuqin Illustration/Heran
To play soccer, it is best to run fast; to play basketball, it is best to grow tall; to play ice sports, balance should be good... So, what about baseball?
On the outskirts of Beijing, there is a youth baseball public welfare base called "Strong Baseball Angel". In 5 years, this base has built 6 baseball teams, won more than 10 awards in China, and even traveled to the United States to participate in international competitions. However, the cadets in the base had no idea what baseball was before they joined.
Who can play baseball?
At the end of 2015, several cars shuttled between the lofty mountains and mountains of Hebei Province, and in the car sat Sun Lingfeng, the founder of the Qiangbao Angel Public Welfare Project, and his team, which was the first time they went out to recruit students. Xiao Shuang was Sun Lingfeng, whom he knew at that time, and he was also one of the earliest students of the baseball base. At that time, Xiao Shuang was only 9 years old, his parents died, and he and his second uncle were dependent on each other. When he learned that he was leaving home for Beijing, Xiao Shuang cried his heart and lungs, thinking that the second uncle was going to sell him. "Almost all the children, when they knew us, didn't even know whether the baseball was round or square, only heard that three meals a day, the children's parents let them go with us", these scenes Sun Lingfeng still remember.
The selection of athlete seedlings requires a variety of comprehensive considerations: physique, endowment, personality... However, most of the children encountered by Sun Lingfeng's team were malnourished and their physical fitness was not up to standard. Not only that, but some children have difficulty even communicating with people in a normal way because of their long-term lack of discipline. Such a sloppy tiger from Xiji County, Ningxia, fights with people in the village, comes to the base to continue to fight with other children, and can fight whenever it is necessary to communicate with the outside world. But when he was alone in the corner of the corridor, he would sing: "Mommy I miss you, after leaving you, my sky will rain." Because, when Ma Hu was 3 months old, his mother ran away from home, and his father rarely came home. Unattended childhood, day and night when there was nowhere to tell his mind, violence and collision eventually became his language.
It is these "small seedlings" who do not meet the standards, as long as they are between 7 and 10 years old, Sun Lingfeng has brought back to the base for cultivation. Ma Hu was already 12 years old at the time, and he was admitted out of the box, because "he was the most pitiful at first glance", and if he was not taken care of, he would be completely left unattended.
Sun Lingfeng felt that they could all play baseball!
Must be baseball
Sun Lingfeng was born in 1978 to an ordinary working-class family in Beijing. When he was 7 years old, baseball coach Zhang Jinxin went to school to select talents, saw that although he was short, he had good explosive power and some interest in baseball, so he took him away. At the age of 18, Sun Lingfeng entered the national team and later won a key point at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games to beat the then world-ranked Chinese Taipei team, and became famous. 2 years later, Sun Lingfeng officially retired, but what to do after retiring? He was very confused about it. He has been the head coach of the Jiangsu provincial baseball team and runs the Chinese Baseball League, but a feeling of not being energetic has always haunted him. It wasn't until March 2010 that he was invited to help a friend train a bunch of orphanage children, and in just five months, the children won the world-class baseball championship.
At that moment, Sun Lingfeng understood what he wanted to do - using baseball to bring more possibilities in life to children in distress.
At the beginning of 2015, Sun Lingfeng sold his house, took the pension of his parents and the investment of friends, and devoted everything to found the "Strong Baseball Angel" baseball public welfare project, and successively went to Henan, Sichuan, Northeast China, Ningxia, Gansu and other places to find children in distress and bring them to the baseball base for training.
To let children with uneven conditions learn a sport from scratch, it is difficult to say, not to mention that baseball itself is quite niche in China, but Sun Lingfeng is confident: play football to run fast, play basketball to be tall enough, play football to be able to collide, but baseball is different, tall, fat, thin, quiet and unrestrained children can explore their own unique side and find a place on the field.
Find yourself, find home
When they first arrived at the base, most of the children were only 8 or 9 years old. The first time I left the mountain village, my heart was more uneasy and afraid of the unknown, and like Xiaoshuang and Sloppy, they also had their own problems.
In the face of these children from all over the world and with very different personalities, the coaches of the baseball base, the teachers of the culture class, and the life teachers have poured a lot of effort into it, and even one coach has not taken a vacation for 27 consecutive months. At the end of 2019, Sun Lingfeng was also diagnosed with myocardial infarction, and his heart was equipped with 4 stents.
In the first two years of coming to the base, every child will learn all the skills needed to play baseball: hitting, pitching, catching, running bases... After that, they will look for the position that suits them best.
Picture/Illustration For kids playing baseball
There are 9 members of the offensive team in a baseball game, and each has the opportunity to become a hitter or a baseman, but the order of appearance is crucial. For example, the first stick needs to be charged by the most lively and brave children in the team, because they are bold, aggressive, and dare to face a completely unfamiliar environment; the second stick is played by a child with a calmer and more conservative personality, who needs to have a spirit of sacrifice; the children with strong comprehensive ability in the team must play on the 3rd and 4th sticks; the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th sticks are pushed in this way. A baseball game is like a platoon, with everyone playing at the right time.
Finding a place where you can shine is of course important, but baseball is also a sport that places a great emphasis on teamwork, a sport known as "coming home."
Unlike soccer and basketball, baseball's scoring logic is not about where to hit the ball. The batter stands on home and prepares, uses the bat to hit the ball thrown by the pitcher as far as possible, and then runs back to the "home" (home base) as soon as possible before the ball is intercepted or landed by the opponent, so that 1 point can be scored. So in a baseball game, everyone is not fighting for the ball, but with the goal of "going home", each of them is cutting through the thorns.
Always right
Sun Lingfeng said that playing baseball is the same as life, the most important thing is to have the ability to foresee, have judgment, and do the right thing at the right time. It takes knowledge, it takes experience. Obviously, the trainees couldn't do that yet.
For Ma Hu, entering the base to learn baseball is the most important lever for him to leverage his fate, but he was sent back to his hometown in Ningxia by his teacher because of his recklessness and naughtiness. This may be a deliberate arrangement, after sloppy re-experience of his hometown life, the teacher still took him back to the base, he also cried and promised that he would train well in the future.
To win on the field, you have to make the right choice at all times: does the batter hit the ball? Is the baserunner running or waiting... However, as with life, we cannot always be right.
But fortunately, the mistakes on the field are not so terrible, and the players who fight side by side will make up for each other's mistakes and even sacrifice for each other, because everyone is moving forward for the same goal of "going home".
The arena of life
Since its establishment, "Strong Stick Boy" has participated in many competitions at home and abroad, and has also won many awards. But what makes them most memorable is the unforgettable failure of 2018. In 2018, the "Strong Baseball Boy" went to the United States to participate in the PONY Pony League World Series, which was the first time that the Chinese team was directly invited to represent the Asia-Pacific region in an international youth baseball event, breaking history. At that time, the average time of training for children was only two years, but they were all determined to win. In fact, the coaches have long foreseen the result, losing is inevitable, they just want to let the children remember the feeling of losing deeply through this time. Sure enough, the "Strong Stick Boy" stopped in the top 7. The children hugged and cried as soon as the game was over, but after returning home, everyone underwent a clear change - everyone not only truly regarded the base as their home, but also regarded each other as comrades and families who shared honor and disgrace.
At present, the oldest children in the base are 17 years old, they have found their own value and direction through baseball, received olive branches from various institutions and colleges, some want to go to college abroad, or enter professional teams, and some children want to stay in the base as coaches.
Whether they stay or go, they will continue their lives, judge the situation like on the court, accurately judge, make up for mistakes, and play life into a wonderful baseball game.
│This article is based on an interview with Sun Lingfeng, the initiator of the "Strong Rod Angel Public Welfare Project".
Character introduction |
Sun Lingfeng
Former captain of the Chinese national baseball team, he has played for the national team for 15 years, winning the "World King of Thieves", "Asian King of Thieves", "Chinese Baseball League Most Valuable Player Award", "Best Badminding Award", "Best Defense Award", "Best Hitter Award", "Most Scorers Award" and other honors, and founded the "Strong Baseball Angel" baseball public welfare project in 2015.
Figure: Schematic diagram of baseball rules
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