Dodgers help Africa baseball take another giant leap forward

Signing of Sudan's Joseph Deng is latest event drawing attention to baseball's newest hot spot

The Los Angeles Dodgers have had a busy winter. It just got busier, with the signing of Joseph Deng, who stands 6’7” tall, and throws 95 mph. Imagine what he might be capable of acheving in 4 years, when he reaches the age where he can legally buy a drink in the United States! Joseph Deng is just 17 years old.

And now, with $1.5mm signing bonus and all the upside a kid could ask for, Africa has their latest baseball version of the moon landing: that’s one small step for the Dodgers, but one giant leap for thousands of African kids who dream of being the next Joseph Deng. And, the next Gift Ngoepe, the first African-born MLBer, whose vision for baseball in Africa in 2020 ultimately led to the creation of this online community.

Here comes Africa!

The trend in African-born kids reaching the minor leagues in the US, Japan and elsewhere is decidedly up. However, this is merely a trickle compared to what can and will be, thanks to the ongoing efforts of the Africa Baseball Project. You can check out their tab on this site to learn more.

US baseball fans might not realize that the sport has nearly as long a history in places like Japan and the Dominican Republic, which each started to embrace the sport roughly 150 years ago. But the modern world and its evolution toward instant communication has taken the sport globally. While many nations can meet the demand for quality equipment, playable fields and coaching resources, on a continent like Africa, it has been an uphill climb. Africa Baseball Project not only has identifed that problem, it exists to solve it.

Joseph Deng is the latest example of the extrordinary athletic talent that simply needs the opportunity to be seen. Behind him, there will be so many more.

And as you’ll learn on this site moving forward, the effort to try to speed up the progress, and feed the drive shared by so many thousands of kids across the African continent has just hit another gear. Like Deng’s fastball is bound to do, once the Dodgers coaching system gets to know him a bit.