Category Community Spotlight

Paul Barnes is clear about when his baseball traveling obsession revved up. Barnes, baseball fan extraordinaire, was home in Toronto one day in 2008 contemplating a quick trip to New York to see the Yankees and Mets play during their…

To anyone who would call Bob Abels a baseball fan, Brian Fennessy says au contraire. “He’s not a fan,” Abels’s long-time friend says simply.  “He’s a fanatic.” Fennessy has a point.  Abels has traveled to Nicaragua, Panama, the Dominican Republic,…

Twists of fate are something Jonathan Greenberg knows well. For starters, a chance visit by a junior high school music teacher to his elementary school started him on a journey to becoming a professional musician with a resume full of…

No one knows better than Trevor Raichura that you can’t always predict just what is coming down the pike.   After all, the JapanBall News Correspondent has lived and worked in Japan as a teacher for two decades even though, in the beginning,…

For Don Robbs, the old recruiting lure “Join the Army and See the World” proved to be much more truism than hollow come-on.  It was a call that led him from small-town Minnesota to the other side of the planet…

When JapanBall veteran Leon DeHaven hears the old saying about life being about the journey rather than the destination, he must have a good laugh.  He’s already packed plenty of journeys and destinations into a single lifetime. “It’s been a…

By Carter Cromwell When telling Connie Van Putten’s story, the challenge is not in finding a starting point but in choosing from a plethora of candidates: All excellent choices.  For now, though, let’s go with her background as an early…