School Baseball Project at ESS

From July 11 to 14, 2016, the Offenbach Twins held a baseball camp for the second time as part of the project week at Edith-Stein-School in Offenbach.

From July 11 to 14, 2016, the Offenbach Twins held a baseball camp for the second time as part of the project week at Edith-Stein-School in Offenbach.

After last year's great success, it was time again during the final week of the school year: the balls were flying at Rosenhöhe.

Twenty-two students from Edith-Stein-School were able to demonstrate their baseball skills under the guidance of coach Gunther von Goetzen Sanchez, president and coach of the Offenbach Twins.

These were not their first experiences with baseball. In spring, von Goetzen Sanchez had already introduced the sport, as he had the year before, in all school classes as part of physical education in order to promote the baseball program and the club. Many students were very enthusiastic. This explains why there were more than 50 interested students for the baseball project. Participants were selected by drawing lots. They were students from sixth through eighth grade.

For three days, they trained diligently from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. After initial difficulties with catching and hitting, the young baseball players quickly became capable of playing proper games.

On the first day there was still a lot of confusion because the rules were not yet completely clear to everyone. Fly-outs in particular caused problems, and some avoidable outs occurred because the runners simply took off without waiting to see whether the ball would land in the glove or on the ground. But the students learned quickly.

The game on the third day took place at a really impressive level. It certainly helped that legendary Antonio Fulgencio, a veteran of Hessian baseball, took the time on all days to introduce the young people to baseball and work through several exercises with them.

On the fourth day of the project week, the ball was put away. To finish, the whole group watched the Hollywood baseball movie “Major League” while eating homemade popcorn.

Apparently the students missed throwing during the previous days. Instead of a baseball, the occasional piece of popcorn flew through the room. The project ended in a good mood with a happy ending in the film.

With the School Baseball Classics in mind, Edith-Stein-School has nothing to fear. In addition to the existing core of the baseball program, several new talents will now strengthen the school team.