The Czech Baseball National Team organized a training session for 34 children from orphanages across the country at Tempo in Prague, in collaboration with the non-profit organization Good Fairies for Children.
The National Team players and coaches involved were Arnošt Dubový, David Nevěřil, Dan Vavruša, Marek Minařík, David Mergans, Filip Smola, Tomáš Duffek, Martin Červenka, Petr Zýma, Alex Derhak, Lukáš Ercoli, Jake Rabinowitz, Ryan Johnson, Jakub Grepl, Jakub Kubica and Matěj Menšík.
The participants received autographed baseball cards after taking the field to work on baseball skills.
Matej Mensik took care of the warm-up. The training took the children through different stations: throwing for accuracy, pitching, reaction drills, and hitting from a front toss. Hitting coach Alexander Derhak then guided the participants through a machine batting practice.
At the end of the session, Czechia Captain Petr Zýma involved the children in the ritual One, two, three…Czechs.
"You can't just take. You have to give something back," commented pitcher Lukas Ercoli, the leading organizer. "Hopefully, we managed to bring at least a little light into these kids' lives. I hope they can take a great experience and the idea that good things happen."
Angelika Nevěřilová, the founder of Good Fairies for Children, wished the players good luck for the World Baseball Classic. "Unfortunately, we won't go to Tokyo with them, but we still experienced a great day."
World No. 15 Czechia will compete in Group B of the World Baseball Classic 2023 in Tokyo, Japan. They will debut against No. 30 China.
