By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Baseball Association, in its return to international play without any of its top players, will come home on Thursday from the Pan American Baseball Confederation championships in Panama winless.

But BBA vice president Marvin ‘Tougie’ Wood said it isn’t so much about the team’s 0-4 record as it is the experience that the players from New Providence and Grand Bahama gained playing overseas.

“The tournament was excellent. It was a good experience for the young guys,” said Wood, who served as head of the delegation. “We haven’t been to a tournament in about 4-5 years, so it was a good experience for the under-18 guys.”

The Bahamas, playing out of Group B, lost its games to Cuba, Canada, Venezuela and Colombia. The tournament served as a qualifier for the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s 29th World Cup, scheduled for 2019 in the Gijang-Hyundai Dream Ballpark in Gijang, South Korea.

Team Bahamas was managed by Ken Adderley and coached by Marcian Curry, Keel Pinder (Grand Bahama) and Lionel Ferguson.

The players on the team were: Walter Forbes, Darron Taylor, Monryan Saunders, Jahsiah Gilbert, Franklyn Henfield, Derrinyj Russell, McKell Bethel, Camrone Meadows and Rex Missick (Grand Bahama) and Keffron Wright (Abaco).

New Providence - Austin Knowles, Avard Hart, Ferron Moss, James Rolle, Steffan McKenzie, Devyn Munroe, Tyler Kemp, Treen Dorsette, Dylan Cartwright and Darron Taylor.

Wood, a former perennial national team player, said the record didn’t paint a true picture of how well the team played.

“We were in most of the games from the beginning to about the fifth or sixth inning and then the team started to lose focus,” he said. “They started to make the simple mistakes and errors to give the next teams more runs than they were supposed to get.

“The bottom line is the guys are not playing enough baseball and we need to be playing baseball. We need to have the baseball stadium to play in.”

While the team was made up of nine players from Grand Bahama, one from Abaco and 10 from New Providence, Wood admitted that the only thing they can do in the future is find a way to get the players to come together and gel as a cohesive unit well in advance of travelling to compete.

“It’s hard to get the players to come in on Thursday and we travel on Monday. That’s not enough time,” he stated. “The team need to be playing together for at least 2-3 weeks getting to know each other.

However, he said if the Bahamas is going to improve its level of play, the BBA will have to work on getting more of the professional players who are eligible to make the team.

“We are going to be a force to reckon with,” Wood insisted. “I sat down here for the first time and I was amazed with the level and the talent that we have in our young guys.

“If we can more playing time and some fields up and running, we’re going to be good. I believe that if we come back to this tournament next year, we will make the playoffs. I’m not going to say we will win, but I’m sure we will make the playoffs.”

He noted that three quarters of the team are players, who are 16 years or younger.

“We didn’t have any pros that went with us and the teams had about 6-7 pros playing for them and we were still playing with these guys,” he pointed out.

“It’s hard for a federation to communicate with the pros at that level because they have to get their release for their organizations, but our main goal is to build the relationship with the pros so that they can understand that we are all in one boat, representing the country.”

Next year, Wood said the BBA, under the presidency of Sam Rodgers, intent to hold a series of showcases to display the talent of the local players as there were some of the pro teams who expressed an interest in coming to the Bahamas to view the players here.

“We need to be playing senior level baseball because it allows the 16 and 17 and 18 year olds to play against older guys,” Wood disclosed.

“We have to get away from the seven inning games and play nine innings and the ten game series and play much more ball. I believe that this team here in Panama surprised me. They made some mistakes, but they are good. In the future, they will only get better.”