As the baseball playoffs begin, let’s update the inspiring tale of Dennis Kasumba, an 18-year-old catcher from Uganda who dreams of playing in the major leagues.
He was a 14-year-old orphan working in a slaughterhouse when he met Paul Wafula, a coach and former member of Uganda’s national baseball team. Wafula, who believes in the redemptive power of sports, made him an offer: If you leave the slaughterhouse and come to baseball practice, you’ll get fed. Go to school and you’ll get paid too.
Times reporter Kevin Baxter and I chronicled Kasumba’s intense workouts using improvised equipment — car tires for weights — and how he earned about $1 a day mucking out cow pens, while barefoot, of mud, manure and urine. The story reported that he had been invited to play in the amateur MLB Draft League in the United States, but lacked a visa.
U.S officials had denied three visa requests, but after the story appeared, they relented, and Kasumba spent a month this summer with the Frederick Keys, a team in Frederick, Md. Kasumba, now back home, still dreams of becoming Uganda’s first major leaguer and has been invited to return to the Draft League next summer.
While Kasumba was in the United States, I reconnected with him to capture workouts in Maryland and his team’s first game in Trenton, N.J. Here, from Africa and the East Coast, are images from his extraordinary journey.
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source: LA+Times
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