The Virginia Mustangs and Portstewart Eagles 

Baseball Sister Teams

Portstewart, Northern Ireland and Stafford, Virginia, USA

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Portstewart Eagles

"The Sister Cities program is an important resource to the negotiations of governments in letting the people themselves give expression of their common desire for friendship, good will and cooperation for a better world for all."

- Dwight David Eisenhower

For many of the same reasons that President 'Ike' Eisenhower endorsed the Sister Cities program in the 1950's, the Virginia Mustangs of Stafford, Virginia, USA; and the Portstewart Eagles of Portstewart, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, have formed a Sister Team relationship.

The goals of the Mustangs' and Eagles' Sister Team program are summarized as follows: 

  • Create opportunities for our baseball players in Northern Ireland and Virginia to learn and experience other cultures through long-term relationships.
  • Create an atmosphere that builds on our common passion for baseball to stimulate an exchange of baseball news, tips, strategies and just plain baseball talk between players, coaches and parents from both sides of the 'Pond'.
  • Enable the Eagles' to benefit from a relationship with a team based in a country where baseball is the national pastime and where our youth have played the game for years - often since the toddler stage.
  • Enable the Mustangs' to benefit from a relationship with a team based in a country where baseball is an oddity, but whose members have baseball 'heart' and the 'right stuff' to succeed against all odds.
  • Foster a relationship that could one day lead to team and family visits for games, scrimmages, or just plain socializing; both in Virginia and Northern Ireland.

The Virginia Mustangs are very excited about the Sister Team relationship with the Portstewart Eagles and are proud to be associated with an organization that is fully dedicated to a sport that plays 'second-fiddle' in a nation where soccer is king.  Baseball fields, instruction, and sporting goods stores that sell baseball equipment are a rarity.  There are no AAU or USSSA leagues that build off little league baseball.  No travel teams, no real tournaments.  The vast majority of the players have never seen a minor, major, or any other league (for that matter) game.  Yet the Eagles' persist, coach Gene Powers and two Eagles' players were selected to represent the All-Ireland team in the European Regional Playoffs of the Little League World Series in Kutno, Poland.  While they did not get past that round, they returned to Northern Ireland more determined than ever to take Irish baseball to the 'next level'.

During March, April and May 2004, the Virginia Mustangs collected up new and used baseball equipment and sent it off to Coach Gene Powers of the Eagles.  Equipment included bats, bags, gloves, balls, catcher's gear and helmets to be used by both our sister team and by other newly forming baseball teams in Northern Ireland and Ireland.

In honor of our special relationship the newest team in Northern Ireland has been named the Portrush Mustangs.

Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star

Team is Covering All The Bases

October 22, 2004


Stafford AAU helps out Irish players

When Irish youngsters go out to play ball, they're heading for the soccer pitch, not the baseball diamond. So when Dave Dilegge of Stafford County ran across a Web site for a youth baseball team in Northern Ireland, he was intrigued.

"I'm a rabid baseball fan," said Dilegge, a former Little League and AAU coach. Now he acts as Webmaster for the Virginia Mustangs, an AAU team based in Stafford County. His son, David, plays second base and shortstop for the team.

Wanting to know more about baseball in such an unlikely spot, Dilegge e-mailed the Eagles' coach, Gene Powers.

"I was impressed with his enthusiasm," Dilegge said, "what he was doing to promote baseball."

Powers grew up in the United States, and played baseball here as a child.

"I wanted my kids to know the same joy of playing baseball that I had experienced when I was growing up," Powers wrote in an e-mail.

Three of his children, 15-year-old Hannah, 13-year-old Rory and 11-year-old Colin, are playing on his team, along with 35 to 40 other boys and girls ranging in age from 6 to 16.

Powers said the original players were friends or classmates of his children.

Then children playing in the park where the Eagles practice would linger and get invited to play.

"Once the kids play the game, many are hooked," Powers wrote.

"I don't know what it is about [baseball], there's just something inside you that springs to life when you hear that one word, 'baseball,'" Hannah Powers said in an e-mail. "Maybe it's the thrill when you hit a double and a run scores. Or when you catch a fly ball, and you hear the voices of your team cheering around you. You just feel this one different emotion inside you, that no other sport can cover."

But finding equipment is always a problem, Powers said.

"Gloves usually come in two sizes: too big or too small. Both are too expensive for starters. Balls are virtually nonexistent."

He has gone on eBay to get equipment, he said.

Finding other teams to play is also a problem.

"Currently, as far as I know, we are the only youth team playing in Northern Ireland," Powers wrote. "Our nearest competitors are literally in another country, the Republic of Ireland, a 31/2-hour drive away. Mostly we mainly divide up our team and play a game ourselves every Sunday."

Inspired by the sister-city program, Dilegge suggested the Mustangs adopt the Eagles as a sister team.

The Stafford boys thought the sister-team idea was a good one, and so did the Eagles.

"It teaches our kids more than baseball," Dilegge said.

The Virginia boys decided that they could help their Irish counterparts by sending them some equipment.

"As my son got older he would outgrow his equipment," said Jim Sullivan, the Mustangs' head manager. His 12-year-old son, Jake, plays first base and pitches for the Mustangs. "Everybody [on the team] had the same situation."

In addition, Sullivan said, he had some found gloves left on the field from time to time without a clue as to whose they were.

So this spring the Mustangs collected 13 bats, 16 new baseballs, a dozen gloves, catcher's gear, a couple of batting helmets, two pairs of cleats, 18 equipment bags and some glove-conditioning oil, and sent it off to Ireland.

"It cost us $250 in postal fees," Dilegge said. "The parents chipped in."

All together, it was almost enough gear to equip both the Eagles and a new team forming in neighboring Portrush. As a token of their appreciation, the Portrush team has taken the name "Mustangs" in honor of the Virginia team.

Powers is grateful for the support provided by the Virginia team.

"Not only have they provided equipment, they have also provided moral support to us as we have developed," Powers wrote.

To reach LUCIA ANDERSON: 540/374-5405 landerson

Visit the Portstewart Eagles' Website

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