By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 17, 2021 – As I noted in an article several days ago, watching my beloved Washington Nationals games is therapeutic. This afternoon, I once again put my current financial problems in storage while facing imminent eviction for back rent that I currently owe and was in a euphoric state of mind as the Nationals defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks, 6-2.
As an added bonus to my euphoria, I watched The Bahamas’ budding superstar Jazz Chisholm and the Miami Marlins play the San Francisco Giants on ESPN, and The Bahamas got a whole lot of free publicity as Jazz once again demonstrated that he has a great future in baseball. In the bottom of the fifth inning, Jazz hit an infield grounder and with his lightening speed he beat it out for his second hit of the game. In the bottom of the sixth inning, the Marlins scored two runs to take a 3-0 lead.
I started my journalistic career as a sports reporter with The Tribune in May of 1960, based on my participation in both basketball and baseball in my teenage years as a member of St. Bernard’s Sporting Club, one of the really great sports association at the time that was started by the late Roman Catholic priest Father Marcian Peters.
I was never an “outstanding player” in either sport, but I later developed into a very effective sports administrator, serving simultaneously at one time in the early 1960s as President of both the Bahamas Amateur Basketball Association (BABA) and the Bahamas Baseball Association (BBA).
One of the accomplishments that I am really proud of when I was President of BABA is taking an all-star basketball team to Miami on two occasions to play games against selected high school teams in Florida. BABA games were played on the Priory Court at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral and I am sure that outstanding basketball players at the time like Dewitt Hanna and Fred “Papa” Smith can recall how exciting those trips were.
However, my favourite sport is baseball, and when I had to make a decision in 1963 between continuing as President of either the BABA or the BBA, I chose the baseball association. As president of the BBA for five years in the 1960 before I went to London for a year’s training in journalism at the London Evening Standard in 1968, I took all-star teams to Wichita, Kansas, on two occasions to compete in the National Baseball Congress annual tournament. I did so again in 1971 after I returned from London in 1969 and again became president of the BBA.
I am writing this while watching the Marlins game and they just lost their 3-0 and are now trailing 5 -3 after seven innings. Jazz Chisholm has been on base three times, but he flied out when he batted in the bottom of the seventh. The Marlins failed to score in the bottom of the eighth, but I got the opportunity to see Jazz bat again.
Jazz led off with a hit in the bottom of the ninth, and the Marlins tied the game, but was unable to lock up the victory, so they went into extra innings. San Francisco took the lead in the top of the 10th, but the Marlins bounced back and tied the game and won 7 -6, as Jazz Chisholm scored the winning run. WHAT A GAME!!!
The Marlins will be in D.C. for a three-game series April 30 to May 2, and I certainly hope that I can convince His Excellency Sidney Collie, Bahamas Ambassador to the United States and Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (OAS), to use his diplomatic clout to get tickets for one of the games. I currently live within six blocks from Nationals Stadium, and although I am no longer the Press, Cultural Affairs and Information Manager at the Embassy of The Bahamas, I think Jazz should certainly receive an official “welcome to D.C.” from Ambassador Collie.
Actually, the idea crossed my mind that Director General of Tourism Joy Jibrilu should embrace this opportunity to promote The Bahamas as one of the world’s leading tourist destinations by instructing Dornell Watson-Dean, Regional Manager of the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism in the Washington D.C. area, to work with Ambassador Collie in trying to arrange for the Nationals to announce a “giveaway” of two round-trip tickets to The Bahamas during the game as a prize to welcome Jazz Chisholm to D.C.
