LOCALS EXPERIENCE BASEBALL IN EUROPE

The sport of baseball recently afforded Cape Girardeau's Chris Stanfield, Rob Carr and Bobby Wunderlich a rare opportunity to not only compete on the field but also visit part of the world they may never have a chance to experience again.

Stanfield served as one of the coaches while Carr and Wunderlich were two of the players on the USA Athletes International 15-16-year-old team that recently took part in an international tournament in the Netherlands.

The trio was out of the country for more than a week earlier this month.

"I think it was quite an experience for all of us," said Stanfield, a graduate of Cape Central High School. He is also a former coach at Central who now coaches at Charleston.

USA Athletes International is an organization that directs about 40 to 50 international tours every year, in different sports and with different age groups, from 15-16 all the way up to college.

Stanfield is acquainted with some of the people who run USA Athletes International and he was approached about being a coach for the team, partly because he had some previous international experience, having helped coach a team in the 1996 Junior Pan American Games in Fairview Heights, Ill.

Players on the USA Athletes International team were from Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota. Stanfield conducted a local tryout in February, from which Carr and Wunderlich -- who both will be juniors at Central -- were selected.

The squad began its journey Aug. 2, when it flew from St. Louis to Atlanta to Brussels, Belgium, arriving Aug. 3.

USA Athletes International played two exhibition games in Antwerp, Belgium, winning by scores of 18-4 and 25-0.

Then it was on to the Netherlands for a seven-team, round-robin tournament that included two other teams from the United States and four squads from the Netherlands.

Stanfield's team went 5-1 in pool play to finish first, then beat a team from the Netherlands 6-2 in the semifinals before routing an American squad 20-2 in the finals.

The tournament ended Aug. 8 and the squad did some sightseeing before arriving back in the United States Aug. 11.

Stanfield said Wunderlich and Carr were both key members of the team. Wunderlich, playing first base and the outfield, batted .267 and drove in four runs. Carr, playing second base, the outfield and pitching, hit .250.

Another player from Southeast Missouri, Kennett's Nathan Baker, led the team with four home runs and 11 RBIs. He hit two homers in the championship game.

But Stanfield said the trip was about much more than just baseball.

"These tours are designed to mix education with athletics," he said. "Words can't describe the experience we had. The first day we were there, we toured an old concentration camp on the way to Antwerp. You read about those things but it doesn't sink in until you actually see it.

"One of the neat things is these kids from different countries talking and mixing together. We learn how they do things and they learn how we do things. It was the first time out of the country for me, Bobby and Rob and it was really something."