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| Announcements | Friday, February 1, 2008 |
A Brief History of the Philippine Tot Baseball Foundation Inc.
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The first organized youth baseball group in the Philippines was conceived out of the necessity to continue the achievements of the country in the sport of baseball. The country was number one in Asia until the late fifties. It won the Far Eastern Olympics, which was later named the Asian Games held in Manila in 1954. But due to the gain in popularity of other sports, coupled with the lack of space and money to build new baseball facilities, the interest of the public dwindled, followed by the sponsors and eventually, the players.
To arrest this decline in popularity, Mr. Rodolfo R. Tingzon SR. and some friends in 1964 introduced the Little League baseball program in the country called the Manila Bay Little League Baseball Association. They laid out a master plan
of a comprehensive grassroots program for baseball with the emphasis on helping the less fortunate children get better baseball training, attain higher education and eventually achieve a better future. The program was so successful that all private and public schools adopted the program and is still in place until today.
Baseball, was not new to Rodolfo SR. since he was inspired by the exploits of his father Julio SR., who started out as a High School baseball player in the Province of Samar, when the sport was in it’s infancy stage in the early 1900’s. Julio SR. got his higher education at the University of the Philippines as a sports scholar and eventually became its baseball varsity assistant coach. In 1919 he was asked to move to the Province of Laguna to organize a Commercial Baseball Team for Canlubang Sugar Estate, more known as the “Sugar Barons”. This team then went on to be the most dominant team of the country until the 1970’s. He was regularly assigned as Head Coach of the Philippine team which saw action in numerous international events including playing the New York Yankees led by baseball legend Babe Ruth at the Rizal Memorial Baseball Stadium in 1934. Rodolfo Sr. took over his fathers’ managerial job of the Canlubang team after Julio Sr. passed away in 1955.
In 1974, while holding concurrent positions as President of the Manila Bay Baseball League (MBBL) the most successful commercial league, the Philippine Amateur Baseball Association (PABA) and the Little League Philippines, Mr. Tingzon SR. introduced the PONY Baseball/Softball youth program. Founded in 1951 by Lew Hays to compliment the Little League Program in the U.S.A., it has now become the second largest youth baseball and softball organization in the world with membership divided into 8 Zones from Europe, South and Latin America, the Asia Pacific and 4 zones around the USA. Headed by Mr. Abraham Key, PONY stands for “Protect Our Nation’s Youth”. The rules of the PONY program differ from the Little League in certain aspects, allowing younger age children to play regular baseball rules. There is also a difference in the size of the playing field and distance in its bases and pitching.
Believing that the PONY program was more adaptable to the country’s youth development program, he concluded his ties with the Little League organization, to concentrate on the PONY program and named the organization the Philippine TOT Baseball Association. He then was able to establish chapters to more than 20 provinces in 8 regions nationwide through the local government units.
As more and more children coming from the less fortunate communities started taking up the sport, he begun to be more concerned on the high cost of equipment and the safety of the balls used. Therefore, in 1980 the PTBF affiliated with the International Boys Nankyu Boys Baseball Association (IBA) an organization supported and by the Ministry of Education of Japan and backed up by big businessmen in the field of shipping, transportation, courier services, communications and sports equipment manufacturing. Founded in the late 70’s, it is now headed by Mr. Takeshi Koba, a former baseball star and head coach of the Hiroshima Carps of the Japan Major League.
This organization uses “Nankyu” or rubber baseballs that vary in size for different age levels. These rubber balls perform almost the same way as leather ones do, but were safe, water resistant, durable and better for training the reflexes of young children. They use balls that ranges from a type “D” for younger age groups which is small and soft which needs no gloves to catch and an ordinary stick to hit them, to a type “A” for older age groups which performs almost exactly like leather hardballs but totally made of rubber which is very durable and grips better despite wet weather. Furthermore, less expensive equipment were made specifically for these kinds of balls therefore becoming attractive to teams with limited budgets.
In 1982, the PTBA, in partnership with the IBA founded the World Boys Baseball Federation (WBF) which currently have 44 nations in its membership coming from Western and Eastern Europe, North, South and Latin America, Asia , Middle East and South East Asia. Their aim is to promote peace, friendship and goodwill through out the world using baseball as their means. They hold World Championship Tournaments in August of every year at Edogawa City, Tokyo, Japan and are supported by its local government and the Japanese Royal Family. The Philippines were crowned champions in the 1984 tournament. Since then, both countries started a youth sports and cultural exchange program for the purpose of giving the youth of the Philippines and Japan the opportunity to learn from each other the sport of baseball and more importantly its culture and people.
In 1990, the Philippines finally captured the championship in the PONY Baseball’s World Series of the Bronco Division at Citrus Heights, California after years of runner up finishes and being ranked number one in Asia.
Due to the economic difficulties of that time and the hectic schedule of a political career in 1991, Mr. Tingzon Sr. decided to suspend sending of teams to International competitions and the responsibility of continuing the PTBA baseball program was passed on to his son Rodolfo Jr., he renamed the organization Philippine TOT Baseball Foundation.
Taking a different approach, Tingzon JR. involved public and private schools of Metro Manila and surrounding provinces to start his program. Beginning with only 2 teams and two schools in 1994 the PTBF now has a membership of 20 schools with 50 teams in the Metro Manila District alone. PTBFI has also more than 100 teams and clubs in 10 different provinces participating in their program.
The new comprehensive program entails teaching a new technology to coaches players and umpires, helping in organization, distribution of rule books and related materials, donating used equipment, assisting in tournament and field management, sports psychology and medicine, the promotion of value formation and the establishment of sports scholarship programs.
The participation of the new PTBFI at international competitions started again in 1994 and placed last at both the WBF World Championships and at the PONY Asia Pacific Zone Tournaments. However, the Philippine TOT Baseball teams continue to improve their international standings in spite of all the economic difficulties of the country through the different schools and clubs affiliated with the organization.
In 1996, the organization launched its rejuvenated baseball scholarship program through a long time friend and schoolmate of Rodolfo Jr., in the person of Mr. Eduardo Manzano and eventually became the PTBFI Chairman of the board. He took particular interest in this scholarship program since the country was facing economic difficulty and sponsors for this particular program were becoming scarce. He wanted to ensure that players from less fortunate families partaking in the PTBFI program will continue to enjoy its benefits, to have a chance in attaining a better education for eventually a better future through baseball. Immediately, the PTBFI established links with several high schools and universities to include these deserving children in their scholarship programs. Most players who graduated from the PTBFI program are now enrolled at top universities as sports scholars, while others are gainfully employed, including several who tried out in the minor leagues in the USA and Australia.
The year 2000 marked the expansion of the PONY Baseball/Softball Youth program in the South East Asian Region. Mr. Tingzon JR. was appointed PONY Baseball South East Asian Regional Head and launched its first tournament in Singapore. The aim of this expansion is to share its highly successful youth baseball development program to countries predominantly influenced by European sports namely Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, India, Pakistan, Vietnam and others. This expansion will give these countries an opportunity to form another Zone of the PONY Baseball/Softball Inc. and the champion of its tournament would go on to represent the SEA Region in different World Series Tournaments held every year at the USA.
The year 2000 also ushered a milestone event for the PTBFI because of the commitment of the IBA and WBF to a project in improving the quality of the sport and at the same time the lives of the poor in the country. They will start by the sending top caliber coaches and trainers to the different parts of the country to update and improve the knowledge of our players, coaches and umpires in Baseball. Bringing with them new and slightly used baseball equipment for distribution to all PTBFI chapters nationwide. They will conduct and support regular International Tournaments in the country starting with the Pan Pacific Junior Baseball Games. This tournament shall be the venue to choose outstanding Filipino youth players who in turn shall be recipients of High School and University scholarship grants. Top players of this pool will also be given the opportunity to hopefully continue their studies in Japan and consequently advance their skills and knowledge of baseball. Should they be qualified enough, they will be given the opportunity to tryout and hopefully recruited by an amateur or even professional baseball teams in Japan.
Even through the prevailing economic difficulties, the PTBFI will always struggle to keep the sport alive and maintain quality in all aspects of its development which every child obtains from its program. It is their hope that they, in their own way could largely contribute to the total well being of children, especially those who have less in life to obtain greater chances in fulfilling their dreams of a well founded future.
Notable Performances in International Tournaments
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Current Officers
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Other Baseball Related Positions held by PTBFI President
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Copyright 2007. Philippine Tot Baseball Foundation. All Rights Reserved. |