about kutno
I’m at the Warsaw Airport. I’m set to leave Poland in about 8 hours to head to Italy and wait for Benard to arrive in Pisa for the MLB Academy. I don’t know how to talk about what happened here. It was something heartbreaking. It was something crushing. It was something beautiful. It was something terrible. It was something inspiring. It was something predictable. It was something unbelievable.
I’ll try to start at the end of the story. The Ugandan team won’t be playing in the Little League World series in Williamsport. The Saudi Arabian team will be for the 10th straight year. That is the result and the only thing that 99% of the people who tune into ESPN next month may see. But there is a team that they never beat… for all of the things that will be erased because of what happened here, no one will ever be able to erase this. Uganda 9 Saudi Arabia 3.
This post wont have pictures. I actually haven’t been able to go through the footage that much, its a bit too raw.
Now I’ll go back to the beginning, of what I can remember. The boys landed in Warsaw, the only black people for miles from what I can tell and boarded the bus that Little League had arranged that would take them to Kutno. They were quiet, definitely overwhelmed by the travel and the new surroundings.
We stopped at a McDonald’s on the way where most of them saw a cheeseburger for the first time and most of them didn’t care much for it. It was about 93 degrees when they landed, making the bus trip pretty rough. The boys just watched the farms roll by on the road to Kutno, remarking how neat and organized they were but how the country seemed empty.
They were the first team to arrive at the complex and had a day to see the fields, the nicest they would play on. They ran a few practices, waking up early as they had in Uganda to train. That was the easy part, the baseball was by far the most familiar thing they had.
A mistake was made by Uganda which probably falls into the lap of Washington and George for not understanding the cutoff date for the ages. They accidentally brought 2 players who turned out to be too young. Augustus and Jonah. Augustus by 5 days and Jonah by a month. The officials informed them that they couldn’t play in the games. George apologized to them and told them that they should keep working hard so they can be stars of the team next year. They were crushed but he wanted to keep them involved in the game so he told Augustus he would be coaching 3rd base and Jonah would help count pitches.
The other teams began to roll in over the next days and they could size up their competition. They were definitely confident, not a single team that came scared them. And when they saw the Saudi’s arrive even a few began to hug and cheer that they knew they could beat them and they had already won their spot in America.
The teams began to mix and friendships were made, with the notable exception of the Saudi team who were usually out in town at a restaurant or apart from the other teams doing their own thing.
The coaches meeting was held. Rules were gone over. Richard asked Russ, the head umpire, to go over the tiebreaker rules, to which he responded, ‘its in the book.’ And then they moved on. The schedule was made. Uganda drew the last game against South Africa the following day. The tournament was set to begin.
Game day finally rolled around for Uganda. They watched the 4 other teams play the first two games, with Saudi and Kuwait winning their games comfortably. They didn’t seem intimidated by Saudi’s slick play, and they weren’t. When they began to warm up for their opening match, it was the most tense I’d ever seen them. There was barely a word spoken in the training. Aaron and George remarked that they were focused, but I’m pretty sure it was nervous. They had talked enough, and trained enough, now they had to show their work.
Ivan took the hill for the first inning and believe it or not the first batter of the game for South Africa stroked a fastball over the fence in left field. 1-0 South Africa. That certainly didn’t help the nerves. But they played strong and went into the bottom of the 2nd down 1-0. A runner reached first base and then Solomon came up. He seemed to always be coming up in the big spots this tournament. He crushed a ball to the wall in left center and when the left fielder threw it away on the relay Solomon cruised around the bases for an error aided inside the park home run. Uganda had the lead, the tension released, and they cruised to an easy 11-4 victory. They knew they could win this thing.
The next day was their big test, a double header with dubai in the morning and the Saudi team in the afternoon. The first game proved to be simple as they pounded every pitcher Dubai threw out there and mercy ruled them in the 5th with a 13-3 win. It was just the appetizer for the game the kids had wanted for months.
The Saudi game began with both teams giving their best pitchers 20 pitches to them save them for the Championship game. Kid started for Uganda and gave up a quick 2 run homer in the top of the first before settling down and getting out of the inning. The Saudi team has one very good pitcher, a tall thin Nigerian/Californian/New Yorker whose Mom took a job with Aramco in Saudi and ended up on that team. He throws hard, but often wild, and was obviously the kid that Saudi had lined up for Championship Saturday if they could get there. He took the mound against Uganda in the 1st inning. And they pushed a run across, with Ivan getting a hit, Asharaf walking, and Tony bringing in a run on a fielders choice.
Both pitchers then exited the game and Uganda went to Solomon who wasn’t expected to be one of the best pitchers. In fact, while goofing around in Uganda a few months ago I taught him a knuckle curve. He came in throwing that thing and Saudi couldn’t touch him. I was wide eyed filming it. The boys kept swinging too, putting up runs in every inning to take a 9-3 lead into the last inning. Opio came in to pitch to try to close the door and save Solomon if they wanted to go back to him in a future game.
I hopped onto the third base dugout as the Saudis tried to mount a comeback. The Saudis started to make some noise. Two singles and then a walk on a tight strike zone loaded the bases with no outs. The fans started to feel the pressure. Then the play…
Sharp ground ball back to the pitcher, he throws home for the force. 1. Catcher whips it to Tony at first base for the force there. 2. Tony chases down the runner who had rounded 2nd too far, throws it to Arthur at third for the tag. 3. Triple play, game over. The team goes crazy. They beat Saudi Arabia.
I hop on the field to film the handshakes and I follow George through the line. The Saudi coach though, is nowhere to be found. He doesn’t shake his hand.
All of the other teams are waiting to embrace the Ugandans as they stream out of the stadium, posing for pictures, smiling, laughing. Knowing they can do it, and knowing they are in great shape to get to the final.
Hours later we learn where the Saudi coach was. He was logging a formal protest of the game with the office, saying that the Ugandan third base coach was illegal because he wasn’t on the roster. He was the 10 year old Augustus.
George is called in to the office and he learns of the protest, they wait for Williamsport’s ruling on the violation. It comes back that one of the coaches would be suspended for the next game, either George or Aaron. George brushes it off, usual Saudi head games. Mind you that Augustus was coaching 3rd for the first 2 games without a peep from any coach including the Saudi coach who had watched both games. I’m sure the coach was hoping the penalty would be overturning the game. Either way, he did apologize to George for missing the handshake. But anyway, that night, nothing was going to spoil the good mood Uganda was in.
The next day. The hardest day. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait entered the day at 2-1 and Uganda at 3-0. Saudi Arabia played the first game against South Africa. South Africa was a weak team. They actually didn’t know the cutoff date for ages either and brought all 11 year olds. Saudi Arabia could beat them 20-0 if they wanted to. So I watch the first inning and Saudi Arabia scores 2 runs to go up 2-0. I think, ‘that’s about right’ and then I take off to go film some of the Ugandan boys. I come back to check on the game in the 5th inning and it is still 2-0. I’m shocked. I ask Beata (the organizer) what’s going on and if this Saudi team was weaker than past teams. She responds with ‘I don’t know. I think they are taking it easy on them, I don’t know why.’
I ask to see a rule book and see the tiebreaker formula that is used for breaking ties. Russ and Beata hand me one and point to the formula which is Runs Allowed/Innings Played. Then I understand and realize that they don’t want to end this game on the mercy rule. They want to play all 6 innings to improve their ratio. They are making outs on purpose. Of course. I remark this to Russ and Beata and they shrug and nod. Saudi Arabia wins 2-0 to finish at 3-1.
Anyway, onto the Kuwait game. Kuwait is a decent team and they have an awesome pitcher who happens to be a girl, also an incredible story I wish I had time to tell in detail, but someone should. Going into this game all of us did the math using the tiebreaker formula figuring out that Uganda can’t give up more than 6 runs or if they do they can’t lose to Kuwait by more than 4 runs or else they would be knocked out.
Jonah and Augusts are told that they can’t even sit in the dugout with the team because of the Saudi protest and are forced to watch from the stands. It’s hard for them. (I’m trying to write all of this without emotion, which is also hard). George coaches with the tiebreaker in mind and uses Kid for only 20 pitches and then goes to Mark, one of his weaker pitchers. They are down to 10 players (after the 2 were removed and one coach with Aaron not allowed to have any contact with the field at all, he is off in the city during the game.
The boys seem lost without him and the Kuwait pitcher is cruising. It is 3-0 in the third inning when a sudden downpour comes. The teams run for cover and we wait it out. Maybe it was ominous, I don’t know, I tend to ignore that kind of stuff, but something felt off anyway.
They picked up the game again and then disaster struck (so we thought) Kuwait loaded the bases in the 4th with the Ugandan boys making errors and playing the worst baseball I’ve seen them play in a year. And Kuwait’s talented catcher hit a grand slam, it was 8-0. If the score stayed there they would be out (so we thought).
This was the moment that the Saudi Coaches (not the head coach) and parents came to cause trouble, yelling at Richard in the stands, nearly fighting, instigating, claiming that the Ugandan team was throwing the game (they knew the real rule, it gets really complicated, sorry). Richard and Washington sat asking the Saudi coaches/parents to let them watch in peace, they didn’t listen and only left when the Dubai coaches/parents stepped in the middle and reminded them how foolish they looked. It got ugly up there. One of the parents said some pretty nasty things to my coworker Krista, anyway, nothing that should be around a Little League Game. Anyway, back to the game. They had given up more than 6 runs now, and so they needed to not lose this game by more than 4 which would knock out Kuwait with the RA/Innings formula.
The bottom of the 5th Ochen connects, hitting a long solo home run off of the girl to make it 8-1. That wakes up the boys. The girl reaches her pitches limit and they are forced to switch to a weaker pitcher. The boys get one more that inning, down 8-2 going to the last inning. Kuwait adds one off of Frank (who isn’t even a pitcher really). So they begin the last inning down 9-2, believing they need 3 runs to get into the final.
Two runners on base. Two outs. Solomon comes to the plate. Strike one. Then… swing… a drive… home run. Incredible. 3 run homer, the boys celebrate, they’ve done enough. The Kuwait left fielder crumbles to his knees. Uganda adds one for good measure and ends with a loss 9-6 but they have set their date with the Saudi’s the next day for the final.
Beata and Russ congratulate George for making it. They go into the office with the Saudi coach and flip a coin to determine who will be home team the next day, its Uganda. Beata sends in the match ups to Williamsport. Uganda versus Saudi Arabia in the final.
There is karaoke and face painting that night, the boys are retelling the story of the game. Aaron learns about the drama. Everyone is having fun. The Saudi Arabian team of course does not attend karaoke with all the other teams.
Krista and I are just about ready to go back to our hotel. We call our taxi. And then… we see Richard coming out of the office saying ‘Don’t go anywhere, we have a problem.’
George is called into the office. The umpires and organizers here had it wrong. Uganda is out, Kuwait and Saudi are in.
Okay, before I get to the absolutely crushing heartbreak of the next hours, let me try to explain their mistake. The runs allowed/innings played ratio is used to advance only one team, not to determine the order of all three. So you figure out the ratio for each of the tied teams, advance the top one into the championship game, and then use the head to head tiebreaker for the remaining teams. Meaning, Saudi Arabia is advanced as having the best runs allowed/innings ratio, and Kuwait goes over Uganda based on the head to head victory. This is true. And this is what was never explained and nobody seemed to know, not even the organizers or umpires, who should have. And in fact not only was it not explained, the wrong interpretation (the one where you use the formula for all 3 teams) was told to the Ugandan team.
You can do the math a thousand times and it just gets dumber and dumber. The Saudi team was rewarded for making outs on purpose against South Africa to improve their ratio, the Ugandan team was penalized for trying to comeback and win the game against Kuwait. If Solomon strikes out and they lose that game 9-2, then Saudi Arabia is out with Kuwait having the best ratio and being advanced and Uganda beating Saudi Arabia on the head to head tiebreaker.
There are a lot of ways to look at this. The rule is obviously broken and awful and Little League should fix that. But the bigger problem here is the information that was given to the Ugandan team by the organizers here affected George’s coaching, affected his play, they would have pitched different pitchers, and who knows maybe they even play like the Saudi’s and make outs on purpose to get in (I’m so proud of them for not playing like the Saudis though). If anybody needs proof that the organizers weren’t aware of the rule all you have to see if that they sent in the results to Williamsport, they flipped the coin, they were sure. That chapter and discussion is probably not over. It could get legal and ugly, but anyway, little league made a tremendous mistake here. They didn’t do it on purpose (the organizers/umps) but regardless… mistake.
Onto the heartbreak. George has to tell the kids they are out. He walks to karaoke and tells them. I can’t even write about the next 12 hours. It was tears, disbelief, heartbreak, anger, everything you could imagine.
The boys sat under the pavilion crying for hours. The Saudi team marched right in front of them chanting ‘We are Saudi, mighty might Saudi!’ The Kuwait team followed the Saudi team and walked right up to the Ugandan boys to hug each and every one and tell them how sorry they were and just hold them. Think about that, the team that just got the news that they were in the final after believing they had blown it were the ones to comfort Uganda, and the team that was in all along was the one that marched in front of them. I’ll never forget it.
I’m having trouble writing this at this point. I couldn’t look at my lcd on the camera most times because I couldn’t stand to see the boys like that. The worst part was people saying how terrible it was because ‘you can’t explain that to a 12 year old boy, they wont understand.’ But the real problem is that they are African, they are from Uganda. They understand when the rules change after the game. This was really bad. Everybody, not just the Ugandan team and people connected to it, was wrecked, the umpires, the organizers, the other teams (obviously besides the Saudis), the coaches, everyone back in Uganda who would somehow be getting the news from George sending an email.
I stayed up all night with them until I could see a few smiles again. We watched highlights I had shot of their win over Saudi Arabia. I think we watched that triple play 15 times. We made plans for the next day. It felt like a bad dream. They would be playing in the consolation game against Dubai. A game no one on the team wanted to play that night. At some point, some of us slept. I didn’t.
The next morning was gray. The boys dragged themselves to the breakfast pavilion wearing their uniforms. Umpires and organizers couldn’t look at their faces. Dubai, South Africa, and Kuwait were still coming over to console them, Saudi Arabia was off somewhere preparing for their game. George tried to smile for the boys, but he couldn’t stop crying when they couldn’t see.
We walked over to the stadium where the Kuwait versus Saudi Arabia game would be played. Kuwait had used their best pitcher to get to the game and the result was a foregone conclusion, Saudi Arabia would crush them. The game just felt… wrong. They announced the players and coaches as the Uganda boys watched silently from the stands. When they got to the Saudi Arabian coach… the fans booed. Not the Uganda boys at all… but the fans, from Dubai, Kuwait, South Africa. Nobody had ever seen something like that in Little League.
The game began and Uganda watched, knowing that they should be there, that they could win it. Around the 3rd inning with Saudi Arabia well on their way to Williamsport again, Uganda left to warm up for their game with Dubai to play for 3rd place.
When they started to take infield, I noticed the smiles coming back. When they play, they are happy. Nobody there could understand where they are from, why they love it so much. It’s the same reason Arthur played in Lugazi 7 hours after his Dad died. It’s the same reason Ochen and Opio don’t talk about hiding in the bush in Gulu from the rebels when they play. It’s the same reason Asharaf can’t pay attention in class when he daydreams about hitting home runs in Poland (he did, in fact, hit one here). It’s a lot of reasons. But they played that game with Dubai and they won it 8-1. But then they played 2 more innings.
The Dubai coach and George agreed to play 2 more innings for fun where they would let Augustus and Jonah play who had been denied for being too young. It started to rain, but they still played. Augustus wanted to pitch, and throw his curveball, and he did. And lefties batted righty, and righties batted lefty, and players laughed, and there were 7 outfielders, and the officials were gone, the umpires were gone, and fans waived umbrellas in the rain, and some came down to help umpire or coach first base… they just… played.
And when the 2 innings ended they all ran together into the outfield and slid (a tradition that the Uganda team started way back in Uganda). They traded jerseys with each other, and picked each other up and took pictures. And when they were done I caught Opio looking out over the field wearing a Dubai jersey with a Dutch last name printed on the back, thinking about what happened here… And I don’t know if anyone really knows.
There were more tears shed for different reasons in the last few days here than I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how we’ll tell this story, or if it is even over. The team is coming back for the under 14 tournament next year, which they can win, most of them will be back, and a few 13 year olds I know will make the team and be great. I really can’t speculate on the future at this point, we’re all just taking it day by day.
That night they went out with the Kuwait team who became good friends over the course of the tournament, and they were kids together at a restaurant in Kutno. I didn’t talk about the non baseball stuff in this entry, there was plenty. Ochen is in love with a Polish girl who gave him a plastic heart, they ate pizza and cheeseburgers for the first time, they danced for the locals in the plaza, they made friends from around the world on other teams, they saw a country where you can drink the water that comes out of the tap, they saw nice roads, and homes, and they beat Saudi Arabia.
They are back in Uganda by now, I’m sure trying to tell parents, friends, and coaches what happened here, I hope they can do a better job than I just did. I’m excited to see Benard next week and I know he’ll pitch great and learn all he can in Tirrenia. And even though this has been hard, and will be hard for a while, if there is one thing I know about those boys, it’s this… they won’t give up. And neither will I.
