By: Policy In Focus

From Killing Fields to Fields of Dreams John Perra | October 6, 2009 Editor: John Feffer
Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org
Cambodian baseball players. Cambodia is an unlikely place for baseball. There is chronic poverty, lingering post-war trauma, and rampant human trafficking. Children are more likely to work or rummage through the fetid muck of the Steung Meanchey dump than go to school or play. But for the last seven years, Joe Cook, a Cambodian refugee, has been teaching the game in his homeland, building Cambodia's first ball field. Last year, he even managed to put together a national team. In March, they finally won their first game, playing a short series against a team from Vietnam. Considering the violent history the two countries share, just playing the game was an accomplishment beyond any scorecard. Becoming Joe Cook For Joe Cook, playing games came to an abrupt end in August 1975. He was Jouret Puk then, the son of a high-ranking Cambodian official who commanded nearly 3,000 troops. "My little sister and I were playing behind our house," Cook remembers. "All of a sudden we saw people dressed in black and red marching toward us. We were scared and we hid behind a tree." Those people were the Khmer Rouge and they invaded his village, burning homes to the ground. "They got us all in one place," he recalls, "then they forced us to march to a camp," he says. Cook's father was killed, and his family was split up and forced into labor camps. Cook's youngest sisters were among the 2 million executed by Pol Pot's regime. In 1978, Cook, then eight, escaped his camp with his mother and oldest brother, trying to reach the Thai border. For a week, they made their way barefoot. "It was only 18 miles to the border but it turned into 80 because we had to keep moving back and forth, criss-cross because landmines were everywhere. So were the Khmer Rouge, and the Vietnamese who had just invaded." The three refugees had only a small cup of rice between them, so to survive they ate crickets, grass, leaves, and tree bark. "I can remember catching frogs and eating them alive," Cook says. The pools of water they came across were polluted with the dead bodies of pigs, cows, and people. "I tried to brush the blood back to drink," he recalls, "It was so thick and bitter." Bodies lined the roads and when they ran into other people escaping from the camps, they would barter for food. Finally, they made it to the Thai border and then to a series of refugee camps. In the Philippines, they found a sponsor through the U.S. embassy and arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee in May 1983. "We couldn't even pronounce Tennessee. And we thought America must be near France because you had to take a plane to both of them," he says. In America There, everything was new. "I thought it was like a dream," Cook says, "A stove, a toilet, a TV. It was fascinating." And then there was the game he saw being played near his home. "All I knew was that it was some kind of sport," he says. It was baseball. "I watched them behind a fence," he recalls, "I saw them having fun. I saw happy faces. As a kid in Cambodia, there was never happiness. But I knew in baseball is happiness. I kept going back every day. Finally I got the guts to go onto the field." Through a combination of limited English and gestures, he made it clear to the coach that he wanted to play too. "When he gave me a glove so I could play catch, it felt like he had given me the whole uniform. I was like the other kids," he recalls. It was the start of a deep passion. Baseball was also a way to assimilate. He became "Joe Cook," a chef in a Japanese steakhouse in Alabama, listening to Atlanta Braves baseball on the radio in his kitchen. He married and had two children. In 2002, Cook's older sister Chamty, who he thought had perished, called from Cambodia. After years of brutality in the labor camps, she had been released in 1990 and used the Internet to track down members of her family. Cook agreed to reunite with her in Cambodia. As a way of honoring him, Chamty wanted to travel to the airport to meet him. But the transportation costs were more than she could afford. She made a difficult decision. So as not to lose her brother again, she sold her son to traffickers. "When I arrived and found out, I was devastated," Cook says, choking up, "She didn't understand that I could've met her anywhere. I never would've wanted her to do that." The first thing he did was buy back his nephew, Chea Theara, for $86. Bringing Baseball Home "He was so happy, so proud that his uncle had the ability to do that, he wanted to show me his town and also share his town with me," says Cook. Chea showed Cook his school in Baribo, a village in Kampong Chhang province about 68 miles west of Phnom Penh, and near it an open field. Cook thought it would make a good spot for a baseball diamond. "What's baseball?" Chea asked. "It's a crazy game that I love," Cook told him, "I'll come back and bring equipment and teach you." And he did. Eventually he built Cambodia's first baseball field in Baribo and began instructing kids there in the fundamentals of the game. Soon he was feeding them, teaching them English, and establishing the national team that includes Chea on its roster. For several years, Cambodia's government wanted to shut down baseball in Cambodia. It was too American for them, according to Cook. "They kept saying, 'how about soccer?'" he says. Although also a product of Western influence when the French brought it to Cambodia in the 1930s, soccer has been a hugely popular sport in the country for decades. The skill of Cambodia's players was the envy of much of Southeast Asia until the Khmer Rouge all but put an end to the sport. It wasn't until the 1990s that Cambodian soccer began to regain its strength, with teams competing and winning in international tournaments. Likewise, Pradal Serey, an ancient boxing style best known for its martial arts roots and kicking technique, has begun to reemerge as a national sport. It too was nearly lost to history when the Khmer Rouge banned traditional martial arts and executed its boxers. But Cambodia has spent more than a decade now regaining its athletic prominence. It returned to the Olympics in 1996 after a 24-year absence and has participated in those games ever since. Coming Around to Baseball Despite the national focus on soccer, Cook kept baseball in Cambodia going, supporting the game out of his own pocket and getting some help with equipment and coaches from Major League Baseball. Then this year, the national team started winning, beating Vietnam in that friendly series and gaining professional bragging rights by besting Malaysia in May in an official game between the countries. A governor donated land for another field after that. Cambodia's people are starting to come around to the game. Other baseball clubs and organizations have sprung up in the past few months, including one in the capital city of Phnom Penh. The organizer of that group is a young man in his earlier twenties who calls Cook "Bong," the Khmer word for "brother," a sign of respect. That pleases Cook and he laughs, "I am baseball's big brother." In reality, Cook is now president of the Cambodia Baseball Federation. In August, Cook developed the first regional leagues within Cambodia. The Braves, representing the west, and the Royals, in the east, play each other nearly every day. "Someday I want to build a stadium here," says Cook. The image of a stadium leaves even him, baseball's true believer here, awestruck. "Can you imagine a baseball stadium in Cambodia?" he asks. John Perra is a journalist, a contributor to Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews with Hunter S. Thompson (Da Capo 2009), and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

A little less than forty years ago a boy with the name of Joeurt was born in the country of Cambodia, and this story of his is long overdue because without it, Cambodian baseball would hardly exist, much less be understood. In the 1960’s, Joeurt’s father had worked secretly in a Cambodian government agency, but he was violently executed during the Khmer Rouge. Soon after, Joeurt was hurt in a land mine explosion, inflicting even more damage to his already weak body. Starvation, insect infestation, and dirty water all left undeniable traces: Joeurt’s head and tummy were swollen, his arms were stick thin, and his eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his skull.

That was when his mother decided to escape. Along the way, a couple of her children got separated, but she managed to bring Joeurt and his sister to Thailand. It was a miracle that they survived such a long trek, and Joeurt’s family even found a sponsor there, who relocated them to Tennessee on the 18th of May, 1983. For this young boy, America was “a whole new world,” because he spoke no English and did not even know what a toilet was. Additionally, Joeurt’s health continued to break down, and he failed to make new friends as a result of the language and cultural barriers between them. As Joeurt approached his adolescence, he started to crave others’ company, which he found on a field a couple of miles from his house. There was a strange game involving bats and gloves, and using his body language, Joeurt requested to play. The coach had him throw a ball around with another team member, and soon, he fell in love with this game called baseball. Through his experience on the field, he started to learn English and connect with others of his own age.

A few years later, this boy named Joeurt grew up to assume the name of Joe Cook. When reminiscing about his past, Mr. Cook said the following, “For me, tossing the ball back and forth was equal to friendship. I played baseball not to become good, but it was simply the sport that directly touched me at first.” These warm feelings prompted him to join a Little League, and though he was “never the best on the team,” he just wanted to play some “fundamental, fun baseball.” To Mr. Cook, this sport had no criteria for its players; one needs not to be of a certain nationality, nor does one need to speak a certain language. Baseball has a universal power that can reach everybody, despite a player’s background and despite a player’s identity. It simply, and continuously, inspires people to be better than they already are.

In 2002, just when Mr. Cook thought that he had lost all connections with Cambodia, his sister gave him a call from California. At the time, he was living in Alabama with his wife and two children, and no one was more shocked than he to hear about a second sister, one who had contacted them from their homeland. After much deliberation and many prayers, Mr. Cook decided to go to Cambodia and meet this woman. When he arrived, he asked her a lot of questions about their family history, all of which were answered perfectly by a seeming stranger. Not surprisingly, Mr. Cook wanted to do something for her, who had had used up all of her money to find him and had gone through unimaginable hardships. He started by buying back for her the son she was forced to sell to a brothel, and he acquainted himself with her other children – his nephew and niece. They grew to like him a lot, and they brought him to their old school, a place with many other kids who had suffered much too many injustices for their age. Mr. Cook approached them, and within their faces, he saw himself from thirty years ago, lost in the world and unable to find a way out. He remembered what had saved him then, and so he popped the obvious question to the little ones standing before him, “Have you guys heard of a game called baseball?”

“No” was the answer he received, and this simple word initiated a series of emotions within Mr. Cook, which then in turn led to a domino effect of events. He brought back to Cambodia many bats and gloves, and he started to teach these kids how to play. What he noticed was a transformation; the eyes of these fledgling baseball players no longer held the despair that had once been present. From there came a federation called Cambodia Baseball, and though it is not well known and not well-staffed, it is a first step. It shows how baseball as a game has the ability to penetrate all boundaries, and it can bring the much searched-for light to a place full of darkness. And now, Mr. Cook calls for our help, because he alone is still too weak. Nevertheless, the positive influence of baseball is blatant, and if enough people stand behind him, a country much less fortunate than most can benefit tremendously from the therapeutic effects of our favorite game. And who would have known? Who would have known that a simple phrase like “I am baseball” can heal the wounds left behind by an oppressive country, bestowing upon its believers a newfound sense of hope.

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Group A:                    Group B:    

1. Thailand               2. Hong Kong

3. Pakistan               4. Indonesia

5. Srilanka               6. Myanmar

7. Malaysia             8. Cambodia

Cambodian Team Schedule:

Monday May 25th; 9am (Indonesia vs Cambodia). 

May 26th Off.  

Wednesday May 27th; 9am (Myanmar vs Cambodia)

Thursday May 28th; 1pm (Hong Kong vs Cambodia)

It's gonne be a hard matches for Cambodian team in Group B.        

First Cambodian Friendly Game

Vietnamese Baseball Team

Cambodian Baseball Team

This coming March 10-14, we're welcome the Vietnamese baseball team from Ho Chi Minh City for the Friendly Games to be held in Baribo, KompongChnang Province.

Cambodian baseball team has never played any team from other country. This would be a great new experience for us, said the players. We dream to have other country team to come Cambodia and play baseball with us. So far, we have only play against each other for years. With a new team like Vietnam, it's will help our level of playing skill. We know Vietnam have a good team, because had heard so much about them in the news.

In 2005, MLB Ineternation had helped come to Vietnam donating equipment and help trained the local about the fundamental of baseball. Since then, they have Little League and other league in University.

Player like Bao Le "the catcher", has been very inspiring of game. He has never been played baseball before. But once he does, baseball has become his dream. He hope to bring his team from Ho Chi Minh City this March to play with Cambodian team. He have contacted me (Joe Cook) recently about the meeting.

For me, I would loves to see something like this happen in Cambodia. Having a baseball team from Vietnam, our National Olympic Committee and Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport also can be awarness and understand better about baseball. Also it give Cambodians something to cheer about.

This is good news for me, (Joe Cook). I have always tried to contacting with India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and other teams in Asia. But time isn't right at the moment, the economic, expenses, and few supporter are hard on us.

Our goal right now is focus on welcoming Vietnamese baseball team to Cambodia. We must do our baseball to host such tournament, Mr. Vern Som (coach). We asking NOCC and MoEYS officials to participate in the tournament. This is our first Friendly Games, we must try to do our very best. Our players and coaches are very exciting to hear that Vietnam will come this March. They can't hardly wait to play with them.

As far as we (Cambodian Team) concern, Vietnamese team must be happy to be with us. We stay and eat together, like brother. We don't have good food or place to sleep like any other team in world, but we happy of what we got in Baribo. If the Vietnamese can eat and sleep with us, we will be so happy. Playing the game is a different story.

In December 2007, Cambodian have it own National team represented in the 24th SEA Games held in Bangkok, Thailand. Six teams were participated, Cambodian came last. We were so bad, we even lost to Malaysian; "Joe Cook". We could of won that game, but we had too much confident.

This year, Cambodian National Baseball Team (CNBT) also come-out again and hope to play in the 8th Asian Cup to be held in Manila, Philippines on March 20-29.

Vietnamese baseball team will be play with CNBT.

CNBT have 12 players that had SEA Games experience. The rest, they're just starting to play baseball late last year. But they're still pretty good, "Mr. Lim Keara - CNBT coach" add.

CNBT has been training together since January of 2008. We're focus on the Asian Cup, and to have Vietnamese baseball for us to play with, this is great. Once we played with Vietnamese team, we can see what we need to work on or how need to adjust at the Asian Cup.

We wont take any advantage of Vietnamese team, it's not what we do. Our goal is to play our best. We know Vietnamese team can play baseball too. They don't come here for nothing. We can learn from each other; "players said".

Vietnamese team also will see how poor we are, how difficult in Cambodia for life and society. They will understand about our baseball environment, how hard it is for us to come this far. Maybe they learn from us, or maybe we will learn more from them. Whatever the reason is, we sure will have a good time together.

The local people in Baribo are exciting that we're going to have International baseball team to come their hometown. They hope to draw more attention to the ballpark so that they could sale food and goody to the people who see the games. They mostly wanted to see people from Vietnam, because some of Cambodians are actually Vietnamese who has been living in Cambodia for years. They are exciting to see their own people and speaking the same language.

Most amazing thing is the players of Cambodian team. They wanted to make friend with Vietnamese. It's been so many years, since they undersand about their neighbor.

Last year, we missed many of our opportunity to participate playing with Thai, Japan, Singapore and Malaysian team. Our team suppose to travel to play them, but we couldn't afford it. Also Malaysia team suppose to come Cambodia, but they lost contact.

This is only hope, playing with Vietnamese baseball team is more than just a game. It'll give us better relattionship between the two countries.

We wanted to thanks Bao Le, his team, coaches and sponsors for helping with this match. See you in Cambodia.