《鳳凰盃》香港國際女子棒球錦標賽2010 - Phoenix Cup 2010

President's Message

Laurence Lee

President, Hong Kong Baseball Association

Since the dawn of age, women's ability or social status, have never been treated with equality. In order to serve their country "Mulan" of the East or "Joan of Arc" of the West had to portray as a male figure. Back in the 30s and 40s, during my childhood, nomenclature like "madam President", "female Pilot", "female weight lifter", and "female pole jumper" were unheard of. Hence, when I first saw our Hong Kong women baseball team step on the diamond for the 2nd Women's World Cup final round tournament in Uozu-shi, Japan - it brought me back 17 years. The year was 1993; I still remembered the participants of the first ever women baseball training course in Hong Kong. It was on the Ho Man Tin Reservoir soccer field, where the girls had their first contact with baseball on grass approximately a foot high! They touched everyone there with their sweat and tears, and today they have brought Hong Kong baseball over the rainbow.

On each issue of "Run" magazine, the second page printed our "Mission Statement" and the last two sentences simply stated, "our baseball should spring out of Hong Kong to the world". Seventeen years ago, when we first drafted these lines, we knew within ourselves. Although it fits in with the scheme of things, it was a remote dream that would not happen in the near future. Today, out of our surprise, the dream weavers who made our dreams come true are these ladies on the field who are no longer taken lightly by others.

As a pioneer of baseball promotion, as a founding member of the HKBA, as the president of HKBA, and as a long lasting lover of the game "baseball" - I hereby pay my deepest respect and gratitude to the first, second and third generation women baseball players of Hong Kong who brought us to the world.

I am wishing every player from Hong Kong and around the world a great, happy, and healthy life.

I hope for great success upon all those involved in the third Phoenix Cup, 2010.

February 6th, 2010