The Baseball United Foundation and Healthy Kidz CIC have announced a partnership that will introduce baseball to school children in Belfast and further afield.

Under the partnership, Baseball United will provide a curriculum and remote video instruction to prepare coaches to teach the game to children, ages 8-12. Baseball United will also send baseball equipment including bats, balls, gloves, and training supplies.

“We’re excited to pair our baseball knowledge with the top tier coaches in the Healthy Kidz program,” explained Baseball United Foundation Executive Director John Fitzgerald. 

“Great coaches are crucial to introducing a new game into a place where the sport is not traditionally played.”

“We think baseball will be very popular with the kids,” said Healthy Kidz CIC founder Paul Carville. 

“It’s new and it’s different, but we think the kids will love to try a sport that they might have not tried before.”

The Baseball United Foundation, a non-profit organisation based in New York, was founded in 2006 to support the development of amateur baseball programs in Ireland. 
Since then, the scope of Baseball United’s work has expanded throughout the world, but Ireland remains a special focus for the organisation.

Baseball United has supported youth baseball programs here for several years, by providing baseball equipment to aspiring players in Belfast.

“Baseball United has been working in Ireland for nearly two decades and we are very excited to expand our efforts throughout Northern Ireland,” explained Chris Foy, the President of Baseball United’s Board of Directors, whose paternal grandmother and wife both hail from Derry.

“Many of our board members and volunteers have Irish connections, through family, friends, and ancestry, so working with Healthy Kidz to introduce baseball to Irish school children is very important to our organisation.”

Healthy Kidz is a leading provider of outsourced coaching services and edtech health and wellbeing to primary schools throughout the North. 

Since 2014, Healthy Kidz has provided fun and engaging physical activity sessions, plus ground-breaking technology, focused on improving physical, emotional, and general health.

“Anytime more kids are able to play baseball, it’s good for the game and great for the kids,” added Terry Rosbotham, who co-founded the Baseball Academy of Northern Ireland with his wife, Heather.  

Rosbotham, who played for the Irish National Baseball Team and has organised youth teams in Belfast, continued: “We’re excited that more kids will have the opportunity to learn more about baseball and enjoy playing it with their friends.”