Gilberto Soriano R.
The Dominican Republic National Baseball Team has just achieved a place in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. For all Dominicans it is a great joy that our national sport “Baseball” has achieved a place in the next Olympics. It is an opportune moment to reflect on the reasons why Olympic baseball was able to reach such an appreciated goal. How could we use this event to boost the National Sport?
Dominican baseball talent has filled us with glory for decades, we have been champions of the World Baseball Classic, we have a Professional Baseball League, the most solid since 1955. We are among the best major league talents, but when baseball is talked about at the national team level to compete in an Olympic cycle, the results are not the most expected.
Why did baseball get a spot for the 2020 Olympic Games? The reason is very simple, under the initiative of Probéisbol which is an alliance between the private and public sector, led by businessman Felipe Vicini, the Dominican Baseball Federation, the Dominican Federation of Ballplayers, the Dominican Baseball League and the Ministry of Sports was executed the most ambitious plan and joint effort that resulted in a qualification to the Tokyo Games.
The fundamental challenge of Dominican sports lies in the elaboration and execution of a plan, we have taken baseball as a paradigm, to make a reflection on the basis of the success of this classification, where it can be affirmed that it is due to the application of a scientific method called “Planning”.
The survey of the situation was carried out to establish clear objectives and the strategy to follow accompanied by a plan of action. The realization of a plan leads to the identification of human, economic and logistical resources, in short, a vision of the direction in which we plan to be. This unity of criteria among all the actors that participated in this project must be replicated throughout the entire sports structure.
In order for our country to receive the benefits of sport applied as a science for human development, let us reflect on everything that national sport needs, taking as an example on this occasion the joint effort of the initiative carried out by Probéisbol with the National Baseball Team, and let us build an integral educational system where sport starts at school.
To understand the effort that has been made on professional sports, at present the development at this level has absorbed what we know as amateur sports. This is one of the regulations established by the General Law of Sports, in order to maintain professional leagues, but not to the detriment of national sports. Baseball is a clear example of the absence of the game in the geography of the Dominican Republic. Although that will be a topic that we will expand on in another article.
The Dominican Baseball Team achieved the medal of effort, sacrifice and organization regardless of the results to be obtained in the Olympics.
In an interview with businessman Felipe Vicini by the newspaper Diario Libre, he was asked the question “What does Dominican sports need? To which he answered “that we all work unified” and I add, the materialization of a plan that contemplates the school as the basis of national sports development as established by the Constitution of the Dominican Republic and that has as a starting point the general lines of the National Development Strategy Law 1-12 to place sports at the service of a more just, equitable society, with less social inequality, but above all more human.
