Going, Going...

[Guest Edgy DC]

Ghana!

NEW YORK (AP) -- New York Mets general manager Omar Minaya will be among a delegation of baseball officials going to Accra, Ghana, next week to hold a clinic and promote baseball. Hall of Famer Dave Winfield, former San Francisco and Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker also will be on the trip along with Dave Stewart, Bob Watson and Reggie Smith. The group is scheduled to leave New York on Feb. 1, spend four days in Ghana and return Feb. 6.

[MFS62]

I'm just waiting for the related story - that Omar has been having dinner with the parents of the best 14 year old outfield prospect in Ghana for the last two years.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'd be surprised if Minaya didn't consider it a working trip. It'd be foolish not to look at Africa --- particularly a relatively stable nation like Ghana --- as a potential market and source of talent.

Important Ghana facts: The country is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary of independence this year. It was the first nation in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence from colonial rule.

MLB group on goodwill tour to Ghana

Hall of Famer Winfield to embark on humanitarian mission

By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com

NEW YORK -- A contingent of former Major League stars and current management personnel left on a four-day baseball goodwill tour to the African nation of Ghana on Thursday.

The group includes Hall of Famer Dave Winfield, Mets general manager Omar Minaya, Dusty Baker, Reggie Smith, Al Jackson and Bob Watson, Major League Baseball's vice president of on-field operations.

The tour, sponsored by the African Development Foundation, is earmarked at delivering baseball equipment and spreading the ethos of the sport to the children of the northeastern African nation. But Winfield, a vice president of the Padres, has a more far-reaching task. After the main group leaves, Winfield will travel into villages on a humanitarian mission along with John Moores, San Diego's majority owner, and President Jimmy Carter.

"At 6-foot-7, Winfield will be the most visible American on the trip," Moores said when reached by phone on Thursday. "And that includes Carter. He'll stick out like a sore thumb, but it will be great to have him along."

The core baseball tour was the brainchild of George Ntim, founder and president of the ADF.

Moores and Carter plan on making Ghana their first stop on a nearly three-week, four-country trip, during which their group will deliver medicine and educational materials to local villages. In Ghana, Moores said, his group is tracing the eradication of the Guinea Worm from the population of some 21 million that inhabit the country.

"We're checking the water supply and making sure that it's filtered," said Moores of a Guinea Worm parasite that is largely carried through drinking water. "Then we want to be sure people aren't drinking from the wrong source."

Winfield, who was elected to the Hall in 2001 and played the first eight of his 22 seasons with the Padres, initially jumped at the chance to join his colleagues on the baseball portion of the trip. But, he said, the chance to do some humanitarian work while he's over there was too important to pass up.

"We're going to be bringing some medicine into the rural areas of Ghana," Winfield said on Thursday after a bon voyage press conference at the SNY-TV studios in Rockefeller Center. "So after we finish this baseball end of the trip, I'm just going to stay over for a few more days and go with them. It'll be a great thing. It's a great opportunity to do something like that: to provide high-level humanitarian services to that part of the world. I'm very excited about it."

Moores is the director of the Atlanta-based Carter Center and is providing his personally-owned plane to ferry the former president from Georgia to Africa and all other points.

The day's proceedings were emotional enough what with Ntim, a native of Ghana now working in the U.S. for the Marriott Corp., choking up while describing his relationship with Minaya, who called the Mets' participation in the baseball tour an extension of his club's "world vision."

"When you're talking about the New York Mets, this is part of our global plan," Minaya said in an interview after the main presentation. "We have a global plan that not only includes Ghana, but it is not restricted to only one country or one continent. We'll be in Latin America, we'll be in Africa and we'll be in Asia.

"When I was hired [two years ago] as general manager, it was important to me that we would be an organization about giving back. I want to have that capacity as a GM and this is about giving back."

MLB's previous commitment to the African continent centered on the development of baseball in South Africa, the now apartheid-free state to the south, which was one of 16 countries or territories to send a team to the first World Baseball Classic last March.

But the Ghana trip is the beginning of a grass-roots effort to introduce baseball into that culture.

The four-day excursion is scheduled to include a minicamp, an equipment giveaway, a visit to local schools to promote Tee-Ball and various social functions with the top politicians of a country that achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1957 and has since employed a thriving two-party system.

[metirish]

I worked with a Doctor from Ghana,his Father was President of Ghana from 1979 until he was deposed in 1981.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilla_Limann

[Guest Edgy DC]

Hank Aaron was president of Ghana?

[Willets Point]

Yep. Around the same time Frederick Douglass was Secretary of State.

[metirish]

I should call Baba and see if there are any prospects in Ghana,I know people over there....

[Guest Edgy DC]

Willets Point wrote: Yep. Around the same time Frederick Douglass was Secretary of State.

You laugh, but Second-Hand US History with metirish is one of the most downloaded podcasts.

[seawolf17]

Willets Point wrote: Yep. Around the same time Frederick Douglass was Secretary of State.

And Ben Franklin was president, for all those fans of "The Office."

[Guest cooby]

metirish wrote: I worked with a Doctor from Ghana,his Father was President of Ghana from 1979 until he was deposed in 1981.

Metirish, that sounds like the guy who wants to give millions of dollars to whoever will deposit his money into their US bank account.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Cooby, I was thinking the exact same thing!

[metirish]

I think that's Nigeria,he did just marry a girl from there though.....I tried to tell my landlord that Douglass was not secertary of state....he's won't hear of it,said only a very few people would know that bit of history,apparently now he wants to teach me all about US history,claims that the Kennedy family own all the whiskey Distillery's in Ireland.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I think that if it keeps good relations with the man who keeps the rain out to let him think that George Washington discovered the moon, by all means, indulge him.

Please keep reporting. I thnk a Ken Burns documentary of US history as reported by your landlord would be great. I can hear John Tuturro now: "In 1971, the FBI was closing in on an indictment of Dinah Shore in the Kennedy murders."

[metirish]

I should tell you that he worked for the US Postal service for over thirty years.

[Willets Point]

I just notice that I'm propagating the misinformation by promoting Douglass from Secretary of the Interior to Secretary of State.

[Guest Edgy DC]

The participants listed in the first article: Omar Minaya, Dave Winfield, Dusty Baker, Dave Stewart, Bob Watson and Reggie Smith.

The participants listed in the second article: Omar Minaya, Dave Winfield, Dusty Baker, Al Jackson, Bob Watson, and Reggie Smith.

I don't know what transpired to get Al Jackson to replace Dave Stewart, but I'm starting to think that Al Jackson is a remarkable baseball man and the Mets have been lucky to have him.

[metirish]

How many years has Al Jackson been with the Mets....years right?

[Guest Edgy DC]

If he serves with the Mets this year, I believe it'll be his 40th, out of 47 years in professional baseball.

Not a bad draft choice.

[Frayed Knot]

Ghana play some ball

More from the Africa trip

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

A UMDB visitor from Ghana reports on his meeting with Omar Minaya:

http://leaptoad.com/mets/profile.php?PlayerCode=6600

[metirish]

That's really cool Yancy...Omar can have all the coconuts he wants if he keeps his proimise.

[Frayed Knot]

Insta-international feedback!!

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I didn't know there was a Ghana Baseball Association. It would be nice if Ghana could have a team in the WBC next time around.

[Guest Edgy DC]

We also now know the trick with Minaya is to offer him fresh coconut.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

You go, Hugo.

[Guest patona314]

Edgy DC wrote: We also now know the trick with Minaya is to offer him fresh coconut.

does omar put the lime in the coconut?

http://www.mediafire.com/?6zznzjjd25n

[Guest Edgy DC]

New York Mets General manager Omar Minaya, left, walks together with other delegates inside the Cape Coast Castle in Cape Coast, Ghana, Sunday, Feb. 4, 2007. New York Mets General manager Omar Minaya, looks at the sea from the former slave point of no return gate inside the Cape Coast Castle in Cape Coast, Ghana, Sunday, Feb. 4, 2007. New York Mets General manager Omar Minaya, centre poses for a photograph with an unidentified boy in Tema about 30km from Accra, Ghana, Saturday, Feb. 3, 2007. Pamela Bridgewater,US ambassador to Ghana in front,New York Mets General manager Omar Minaya, middle and Dave Winfield, San Diego Padres Vice President left all listen to journalist in Tema about 30km from Accra, Ghana, Saturday, Feb. 3, 2007. New York Mets General manager Omar Minaya, centre speaks to Dave Winfield, San Diego Padres Vice President right and former San Francisco Giants manager Dusty Baker, far left in Tema about 30km from Accra, Ghana, Saturday, Feb. 3, 2007.

[MFS62]

How cool is it that a US Ambassador is wearing a baseball cap and jersey, and that she looks comfortable in them, like she's worn them before? (i. e. - not just for a photo op)

Later

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Note the ugly ear-side adornment they've added to the BP caps this year.

[seawolf17]

I was going to say something about the hats. Can't just effing leave the hats and colors alone, can they? Bleh.