Hanoi Capitals Baseball

Article from Everett Herald

Pictured above: Hanoi player Pham Phu An signals "two outs already!"

Vietnamese baseball team visits Everett for camp and friendly competition

By Mike Cane, Herald Writer
EVERETT -- At the command of instructor Phil Rognier, a dozen young baseball players assume the "dying cockroach position." Flat on their backs. Hands and feet in the air.

When Rognier barks, "Go!" the players scramble to their feet and sprint from the left-field grass toward center field. Rognier watches closely, monitoring the kids' effort in a conditioning drill Wednesday at the pristine Phil Johnson Ballfields.

At first glance, it looks like any other sun-soaked summer baseball camp. Five dozen kids ages 8 to 12 hustling through conditioning drills, playing catch, and listening to Rognier's passionate speech about the virtues of baseball and its valuable life lessons.

"Coach Phil's lectures, they help us a lot," 12-year-old Ben Nguyen Treutler said. "He tells us about our spirit -- that we always need to hustle and try our best."

This camp, though, is different: Treutler and his 14 teammates on the Hanoi Youth Baseball Club traveled from Vietnam to learn from Rognier.

Close to wrapping up a 34-day trip that started in Indonesia, the Hanoi Capitals are participating in the FirstSwing baseball camp with 45 local players. It's part of the Baseball Connect program created by Rognier, executive director of the non-profit FirstSwing Foundation.

Rognier, 67, of Medina, has coached FirstSwing camps in Everett for seven years. This is the first time he's welcomed Vietnamese players. The bond formed a few years ago when Rognier received an e-mail inviting him to help develop a baseball program in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.

Since then, Rognier has twice traveled to Vietnam, where he used Baseball Connect -- with financial support from Microsoft -- to teach the sport to kids ages 4 to 18. Most of them had never played baseball, which is not popular or even accessible in Vietnam. "There's nowhere to play in Hanoi," Rognier said.

Soccer is the dominant sport, he said. At his baseball camps in Vietnam, Rognier taught basic skills to children on dirt fields primarily used for soccer.

Those conditions are a far cry from the picture-perfect facilities at Phil Johnson Ballfields. After practicing there three days this week, including today, the Hanoi Capitals will play a friendship game against a local team, the Klouters, at 10 a.m. Saturday.

Treutler, a Hanoi infielder, said he is looking forward to the contest.

"This has been a really great experience for our team," he said. "We had never been to the United States and thought that we would never (be here).

"And guess what? Because of a new sport, we can be here. We hope that baseball will become a big sport in Vietnam."

Although most of the Vietnamese players had never been to the U.S., they speak English. Many of them have played baseball two years or less.

"They're very good kids. They're not elite in terms of baseball, but they're elite children," Rognier said.

They enthusiastically soaked up Rognier's lessons.

"It's the basic (baseball) skills that any of the American kids would know (but) we don't," said Phu Ngoc Pham, who helps coach Hanoi and has an 11-year-old son, Phu An Pham, on the team.

The Vietnamese players also are getting a taste of American life. In addition to staying with host families in Everett, Edmonds and Bellevue, they attended an Everett AquaSox game Wednesday and are scheduled to watch the Seattle Mariners tonight at Safeco Field. It will be their first time watching a big-league game in person.

After beginning their long journey early last month with games in Indonesia and Taiwan, the Capitals played in Garden Grove, Calif., and San Diego, and took a trip to Disneyland.

Saturday's international friendship game is the final contest of Hanoi's trip. The Capitals fly home early Monday. Chris Tanner of Edmonds will miss them. The 15-year-old volunteered this week at the FirstSwing camp. He met most of the Hanoi youngsters in April when he and three other Klouter players spent a week assisting Rognier in Vietnam.

"We were only there for a week but we got really tight with these guys," Tanner said. "We jelled really well."

American kids befriending Vietnamese kids because of baseball -- it's just the first step in Rognier's ambitious mission.

"It's just about goodwill," he said. "We call the program 'Baseball Connect' because we connect with the world.

"If the kids get together," he added, "maybe we can end some of this political strife."

See them play

The Hanoi Capitals baseball team plays the local Klouter squad at 10 a.m. Saturday at Phil Johnson Ballfields in Everett (400 W. Sievers-Duecy Blvd.). The youth event is part of the Baseball Connect program, created by Klouter coach Phil Rognier's nonprofit FirstSwing Foundation. For more information, visit firstswingbaseball.org and klouter.org.