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July 23, 2010
OC Register: Man returns to O.C. with Vietnamese baseball team
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When Thomas Treutler and his family made their decision to permanently move back to Vietnam, he looked out across a baseball field for what would be the last time in a long time.
Shifting his eyes from the outfield grass, he watched his son Ben, then 5, run the bases in his Garden Grove PONY baseball game.
A resident of Santa Ana, Treutler had decided to pack up the family and make the long trip back to his wife's homeland and son's country of birth for work. But in the process, he knew they would be leaving some things behind: afternoons behind local high school dugouts, nights at the Big A and weekends spent watching Ben develop as a ballplayer.
Seven years later, the sacrifice doesn't seem too bad.
On Sunday, Treutler will make his return to Garden Grove with a team of 15 Vietnamese All-Stars, who will play against the Garden Grove Pony Bronco 11U All-Star team at 2 p.m. at West Haven Park. For the first PONY-organized team ever in Vietnam, the game will be the opener of a series of scheduled encounters on the West Coast, among them the United States Travel Sports Association World Series in San Diego.
According to Treutler, a lawyer based in Hanoi, the game may be the first that any organized Vietnamese team in any sport has played in the United States since the Fall of Saigon.
"Vietnam doesn't have a lot of team sports... this could be the first time any team has played against the U.S. in the U.S.," he said in a phone call from Hanoi.
Treutler and his team, the 11U Hanoi Capitals, have come a long way from the dirt fields of Northern Vietnam, where early games consisted of Wiffle balls and boys who were abound with enthusiasm, but lacking in experience.
In a land left behind by American forces in 1975, there are few hints of America's favorite pastime – no wooden bats or leather gloves and even fewer true baseball diamonds. The only popular sports involving balls are ones where they are kicked or hit with paddles and racquets. The only hints of baseball in the Communist-run country come from weekly broadcasts of Yankees games.
Two years ago, Treutler, during his son's 10th birthday party, decided to break out a bat and gloves after hearing that his son's friends had never seen real baseball equipment. What came next seemed only natural.
In a bustling city with little elbow room, Treutler went in search of a field – or simply an open space where the boys could stretch their legs and begin to learn the game. They finally settled at a field 30 minutes away where, in a stifling 105 degrees, they set up bases in rock-encrusted dirt.
"I organized six kids to play, and it just kept growing and growing," Treutler explained. "After about seven to eight months, we had about 20-something kids in a Little League."
Treutler began a process of acclimatizing the boys to a sport – a sport in which millions of Americans take lifetimes chasing perfection – in just a few months. He organized practices, then games with local international schools, and later, clinics.
"When I went to Vietnam they didn't have a clue... and they were very, very remedial in their skill sets," said Phil Rognier, a coach with the First Swing Foundation. First Swing, a nonprofit, has run baseball clinics from Morocco to the Far East.
"But they had passion," Rognier recalled.
It was passion that propelled the children to take up a foreign game, despite six days of school a week and mountains of homework. Treutler as well as coaches Dang Quyet Chien and Phu Ngoc Pham formed the first PONY League in Vietnam earlier this year, which consists of four teams, two under-12 teams and two under-10 teams.
The All-Star team comes as a handpicked bunch from the under-12's whose backgrounds range from poor to relatively wealthy. Much of the funding for the team comes from Treutler's own pocket as well as a sponsorship from SSI Securities, one of the largest security brokerage firms in Vietnam.
And while the team has played a flurry of tournaments in preparation, claiming their first international win against a team from Singapore in October, little will compare to their upcoming experience in the States with promise of fierce competition, Disneyland and, of course, their first Major League Baseball game – a Mariner's game when they visit Rognier's foundation in Washington.
"We're looking at this first as an honor for us to host a team from a different country," said Coach Paul Escobar of the Garden Grove All Star team. "It's an opportunity for our boys to get to meet some other kids who love the game as much as they do."
"They didn't tell us how important the game is," said Cooper Hunter, a 10-year-old catcher on the Garden Grove team. "I'm assuming it's pretty big."
Since organizing the boys' first baseball experience, Treutler has poured about $20,000 of his own money into equipment, travel expenses and tournament fees. But for the coach, who oftentimes has to double as umpire and scorekeeper in games in Vietnam, the investment has been well worth it. His mother, Susan Treutler called it his "magnificent obsession."
"When Tom graduated, I gave him a little poem that said, 'Go, make the world a better place,'" she said. "I think he is."
OC Register Article Link
When Thomas Treutler and his family made their decision to permanently move back to Vietnam, he looked out across a baseball field for what would be the last time in a long time.
Shifting his eyes from the outfield grass, he watched his son Ben, then 5, run the bases in his Garden Grove PONY baseball game.
A resident of Santa Ana, Treutler had decided to pack up the family and make the long trip back to his wife's homeland and son's country of birth for work. But in the process, he knew they would be leaving some things behind: afternoons behind local high school dugouts, nights at the Big A and weekends spent watching Ben develop as a ballplayer.
Seven years later, the sacrifice doesn't seem too bad.
On Sunday, Treutler will make his return to Garden Grove with a team of 15 Vietnamese All-Stars, who will play against the Garden Grove Pony Bronco 11U All-Star team at 2 p.m. at West Haven Park. For the first PONY-organized team ever in Vietnam, the game will be the opener of a series of scheduled encounters on the West Coast, among them the United States Travel Sports Association World Series in San Diego.
According to Treutler, a lawyer based in Hanoi, the game may be the first that any organized Vietnamese team in any sport has played in the United States since the Fall of Saigon.
"Vietnam doesn't have a lot of team sports... this could be the first time any team has played against the U.S. in the U.S.," he said in a phone call from Hanoi.
Treutler and his team, the 11U Hanoi Capitals, have come a long way from the dirt fields of Northern Vietnam, where early games consisted of Wiffle balls and boys who were abound with enthusiasm, but lacking in experience.
In a land left behind by American forces in 1975, there are few hints of America's favorite pastime – no wooden bats or leather gloves and even fewer true baseball diamonds. The only popular sports involving balls are ones where they are kicked or hit with paddles and racquets. The only hints of baseball in the Communist-run country come from weekly broadcasts of Yankees games.
Two years ago, Treutler, during his son's 10th birthday party, decided to break out a bat and gloves after hearing that his son's friends had never seen real baseball equipment. What came next seemed only natural.
In a bustling city with little elbow room, Treutler went in search of a field – or simply an open space where the boys could stretch their legs and begin to learn the game. They finally settled at a field 30 minutes away where, in a stifling 105 degrees, they set up bases in rock-encrusted dirt.
"I organized six kids to play, and it just kept growing and growing," Treutler explained. "After about seven to eight months, we had about 20-something kids in a Little League."
Treutler began a process of acclimatizing the boys to a sport – a sport in which millions of Americans take lifetimes chasing perfection – in just a few months. He organized practices, then games with local international schools, and later, clinics.
"When I went to Vietnam they didn't have a clue... and they were very, very remedial in their skill sets," said Phil Rognier, a coach with the First Swing Foundation. First Swing, a nonprofit, has run baseball clinics from Morocco to the Far East.
"But they had passion," Rognier recalled.
It was passion that propelled the children to take up a foreign game, despite six days of school a week and mountains of homework. Treutler as well as coaches Dang Quyet Chien and Phu Ngoc Pham formed the first PONY League in Vietnam earlier this year, which consists of four teams, two under-12 teams and two under-10 teams.
The All-Star team comes as a handpicked bunch from the under-12's whose backgrounds range from poor to relatively wealthy. Much of the funding for the team comes from Treutler's own pocket as well as a sponsorship from SSI Securities, one of the largest security brokerage firms in Vietnam.
And while the team has played a flurry of tournaments in preparation, claiming their first international win against a team from Singapore in October, little will compare to their upcoming experience in the States with promise of fierce competition, Disneyland and, of course, their first Major League Baseball game – a Mariner's game when they visit Rognier's foundation in Washington.
"We're looking at this first as an honor for us to host a team from a different country," said Coach Paul Escobar of the Garden Grove All Star team. "It's an opportunity for our boys to get to meet some other kids who love the game as much as they do."
"They didn't tell us how important the game is," said Cooper Hunter, a 10-year-old catcher on the Garden Grove team. "I'm assuming it's pretty big."
Since organizing the boys' first baseball experience, Treutler has poured about $20,000 of his own money into equipment, travel expenses and tournament fees. But for the coach, who oftentimes has to double as umpire and scorekeeper in games in Vietnam, the investment has been well worth it. His mother, Susan Treutler called it his "magnificent obsession."
"When Tom graduated, I gave him a little poem that said, 'Go, make the world a better place,'" she said. "I think he is."
