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Baseball booming in the BBF   By KELSIE JOHNSON ~ NG Sports Reporter ~ kelsie@nasguard.com: Despite the many obstacles it continues to face, the Bahamas Baseball Federation (BBF) is moving forward with its plans to prepare three teams to compete in the international arena this summer. Those teams are scheduled to travel between the months of June and July. The first squad is the 16-18 squad, which will take part in the Little League Caribbean Zone Tournament set for June 19-28, in Maracaibo, Venezuela. This team is comprised of mostly high school and collegiate players who are currently studying in the United States and Canada. The names of the members of this team were not released but the team will be coached by Felipe Sweeting and Opie Cooper. The manager is Terran Rodgers. Days after the first squad returns, the 15-16 team will leave for the Pony Caribbean Zone Colt Tournament, from July 6-12 in Gurabo, Puerto Rico. The Bahamas received a nod for this tournament after finishing third last year. Heading the team will be Clarence McKenzie assisted by Anthon Rolle. The team members were not given. The final team to represent the country will be the men's national team, at the World Baseball Challenge. The team will head to Prince George, British Columbia, Canada from July 16-26. These three squads, according to BBF President Craig Kemp, are capable of finishing in the top two of their respective tournaments. He boasted on the fact that the majority of the players who are listed have had the international exposure needed through playing games at either the high school or collegiate levels. Kemp said: "Knowing that we don't have a senior facility we made it our business and our mandate that we would do whatever necessary that our senior players have an opportunity to travel abroad and be exposed as much as possible, so for us this is an exciting moment. We are not taking this opportunity lightly and we are going to put together three very, very strong teams to represent us in three different tournaments over the next several months. "It's never hard bringing the players together during the summer time because most of our players who will be on these teams are high school and collegiate players. This is their summer period so it is very easy to bring teams together during that period of time. We don't attempt to send teams at other times during the year for that seem reason, we could never get our better players to be a part of the team outside of the summer months." Kemp viewed the 16-18 team as their strongest team, but revealed that in the past, the remaining teams have played exceptionally well. He also referred to them as experienced ball players who will rise to any level. Team members, for all three squads, were selected from the various baseball leagues around the country. There are more than 10 leagues in the BBF in the country, from Grand Bahama in the north to Inagua in the south. "When we are here and we train our teams we train between JBLN's St. Andrew's Field of Dreams and Freedom Farm," said Kemp. "In Nassau, these two leagues are the principal leagues. We also have two major leagues in Grand Bahama and we also have some leagues in the other Family Islands such as Bimini, Inagua and Eleuthera. "What we did (to select the team), we had tryouts in Grand Bahama, the seem intention was for New Providence but the dates we had scheduled for the tryouts, Freedom Farm had a fun-day and we were not able to do it here in New Providence, but for the most part, most of our players on these teams will comprise of kids who are in the United States playing either high school or college ball. We know these players and we have been following their progress, so the teams which were selected basically were chosen from existing stats for those kids who are actually playing baseball right now." The 7th Annual Andre Rodgers BBF Baseball Championships are set for June 4-7 at Freedom Farm Baseball Fields and the St. Andrew's Field of Dreams. Wednesday,May 13,2009