|
CF05
California-Florida
September-October, 2005
The inagural Aussie Hearts tour was a trip none will ever soon forget! Both a women's team and junior girls team made for a diverse and fun group.
The tour began in San Francisco, California with accomdation located right on San Francisco Bay and a 20 minute walk from the Golden Gate Bridge.
Games against the California Women's League provided both friendship and great competition. For the junior girls, it was a historic doubleheader. Not only were they the first international games every played for junior girls, but the California opposition also featured a movie star on the mound- young Samantha Kane who starred as Amanda in the recent remake of "The Bad News Bears."
Next was the beautiful Disneyworld Resort in Orlando, Florida. Of course, much fun was had the Disneyworld theme parks and relaxing by the swimming pool shaped like a baseball diamond. But the highlight was playing in a great baseball tournament.
Disney's Wide World of Sports is the spring training home of the Atlanta Braves and the fields and stadium did not disappoint. (Indeed in early 2006, this same stadium hosted the first round of the World Baseball Classic.)
The Aussie Hearts women were very competitive at the Disney Sunshine Showdown, finishing in the top half of the tournament- a very respectable fourth place. The junior Aussie Hearts lost their best of five games series against the North American Continental Chaos. While they fell 3-1, two losses were very close games.
The most special part of this tour was sharing it with an American baseball legend. Jeneane Lesko is a former player in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (made famous by "A League of Their Own". Jeneane not only provided inspiration, but tremendous friendship and support...and good coaching.
CF05 was a great tour, special thank you to all who helped get the Aussie Hearts rolling.
|
