MARYLAND BOUND! ⚾️ PAC Northwest is heading to Maryland in July 2027! Calling all 11U, 12U and 13U players ready for new competition, new experiences and baseball beyond the Pacific Northwest. Interested in joining us? Complete the prospect interest form at #PACBaseball# #PNWBaseball# #YouthBaseball#

My sister does tea duty for my nephew's youth baseball team. In Japan, that's a mom job. Every Saturday and Sunday, the mothers take turns in aprons, pouring barley tea for the coaches and cutting lemons for the boys. And for the last two years, standing in the row of tiny mothers in aprons, there has been one six-foot-four welder from Wyoming. His name is Travis. He's 41. He has a red beard, burn scars up both forearms, and a laugh you can hear from the outfield. His apron says "KISS THE COOK." The mothers have never once asked what it means. He has never once offered to explain. Travis met a Japanese nurse named Mika online. He flew to Japan eleven times in one year. Then he quit his job, sold his truck, and moved to a city where he could not read a single street sign, to marry a woman and her eight-year-old son. The son's name is Kaito. Kaito's real father had left when he was four. Packed a bag on a Tuesday. Never called. So when a giant American moved into their small apartment, Kaito did the only thing that made sense to an eight-year-old who had already been left once. He refused to need him. He called him "Travis-san." Politely. Like a substitute teacher. He didn't look at him at dinner. He didn't answer when Travis said goodnight in his terrible Japanese. Travis didn't push. He just stayed. Mika works the early shift at the hospital. So on weekends, it was Travis's job to make Kaito's lunch for baseball. In Japan, a lunch box is not just lunch. Mothers get up at five to make little works of art. Rice shaped like animals. Hot dogs cut into tiny octopuses. Faces made of seaweed. The boys compare them at lunch like baseball cards. Travis watched YouTube videos for a week. His first lunch had a rice ball the size of a softball. The octopus hot dogs looked like they had lost a fight. The seaweed face was supposed to be smiling. It looked frightened. At lunch, the other boys laughed so hard one of them fell off the bench. Kaito didn't eat a bite. He brought it home, still full, and dropped the whole thing in the kitchen trash. Travis found it that night. He stood there for a long time, looking down at it. Then he took it out, washed the box, dried it, and set it on the counter. And the next morning at five, he made another one. He never said a word about it. My sister says you could tell which lunch was his from across the field. Every Saturday and Sunday, for two years. The rice balls got smaller. The octopuses got braver. He learned to cut seaweed with a pair of nail scissors, holding his breath, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Those hands could weld two pieces of steel together so they would never come apart. Every weekend, at five in the morning, they were trying to cut a smile out of seaweed. And every lunch had a note, in Japanese, written in big careful letters. "がんばて" He was trying to write "ganbatte." Do your best. It's what Japanese parents write. But he always left out one tiny letter. So it said "ganbate." It was wrong. Every single time. Kaito knew. He never told him. Two years went by like that. Lunches and silence. Then one Sunday last fall, after a game, a boy on the team said it. The thing kids say when they find the soft spot. "Your real dad didn't want you. That's why you got the American." Kaito didn't cry. He hit him. That night, at home, he finally said all of it. At Travis. Two years of it. "You're not my dad. My real dad left. You're going to leave too. Everybody leaves. Just go." Mika started to say something. Travis put a hand up. Gently. Then he got down on one knee in the hallway. All six-foot-four of him. So his eyes were level with the boy's. And he said it in Japanese. Badly. The accent all wrong. Words he must have looked up a long time ago, and kept somewhere, for exactly this. "どこにも、いかない." I'm not going anywhere. Kaito slammed his door. And Travis stayed on his knee in the hallway for a long time. At two in the morning, Kaito woke up and heard something through the thin apartment wall. A low voice. In the kitchen. Saying Japanese words over and over. Slowly. Getting them wrong. Starting again. Travis, with a textbook and a pencil, at the kitchen table, at two in the morning. Practicing. Kaito lay in the dark and listened until the voice stopped. In February, Kaito's school held a ceremony called Half Adulthood. In Japan, when children turn ten, halfway to twenty, they write a letter to their parents and read it out loud in front of the class. Travis came. He sat in the back, in a tiny plastic chair made for a ten-year-old, his knees up near his chest. He didn't understand a word of what anyone was saying. He clapped for every kid anyway. When it was Kaito's turn, he stood up and read his letter in Japanese. To his mother. Thank you for working so hard. Thank you for raising me. Then he stopped. He turned the paper over. And he started reading again. In English. Slow. Careful. Every word practiced. "Travis. You make the worst lunches in Japan. The rice balls are too big. The octopus hot dogs look scared. You spell ganbatte wrong. Every time. You made me 211 lunches. I threw the first one away. You washed the box. You made another one. I am sorry. I'm not going anywhere either. Thank you, Dad." The room was silent. Then, in the back, a six-foot-four welder from Wyoming folded forward in a tiny plastic chair, put his huge scarred hands over his face, and shook. The mothers of the fourth grade passed tissues down the row to him. One by one. Hand to hand. Until there was a little pile of them in his lap. He didn't use any of them. He just held them. The next morning, Travis came into the kitchen at five to make lunch, like always. But there was already a lunch box on the counter. Kaito had gotten up at four. The rice ball was lopsided. The octopus hot dogs had no legs. The seaweed face was a little crooked. It was the first lunch he had ever made in his life. And on top was a note, in Kaito's handwriting. "がんばて" Spelled wrong. On purpose. The same way. Missing the same tiny letter. My sister asked Kaito about it at practice. Why he didn't spell it right. He's ten. He knows how. Kaito shrugged, like it was obvious. "That's how we spell it at our house."

Teachers and students from the Flying Tigers Friendship School attending the Bond with Kuliang: 2026 China-U.S. Youth Baseball Exhibition Games and Sports Festival on Tuesday visited a middle school in Fuzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province, to enhance the sports and cultural exchange between young people of the two countries.

It gives me great pleasure to speak at the opening ceremony of “Bond with Kuliang” 2026 China-U.S. Youth Baseball Exhibition Games and Sports Festival held in Fuzhou. This year’s Sports Festival, themed “Pitch Across Oceans, Catch the Future”, brings young baseball teams from China and the U.S. onto the same field to compete, connect and make friends through the game. I believe it will inject fresh vitality into the friendship between our peoples with the vibrant energy of youth.

Trade well. Give back. Those words hang on the wall at SMB Capital. We’re bringing that spirit to Traders4ACause Austin 2026, and we’d love to see you there. Come meet Mike Bellafiore, SMB’s Co-Founder, and Jeff Holden, our Head of Trader Development, in person. Talk trading with Bella: Bring your toughest questions about improving your performance and sharpening your edge. Hear stories from the desk about who is doing exceptionally well at SMB right now—and why. (Fair warning: Ask Bella about youth baseball training only if you have an hour to spare.) Talk recruiting with Jeff: Curious about earning a seat on a prop desk? Ask what it takes to get hired as a full-time trader at SMB or land an internship. Whether you’re looking to break into prop trading, take your independent trading to the next level, or connect with top proprietary and independent traders while supporting a great cause, come join us in Austin. Register and learn more: If you’re coming, make sure to say hello!

WAKE UP, IT'S A CHUCKS GAMEDAY 🆚 @ecexpress ⏰ First Pitch: 5:05 PM ‼️ IMPORTANT GIVEAWAY INFO ‼️ Woodchucks Camo Hat Giveaway: Due to unforeseen issues with international customs, these hats have not arrived in Wausau. The hats will be in sometime later this season or early off-season. Once they arrive, information regarding an updated timeframe will be posted on social media. The first 500 fans through the gates this evening will receive a voucher for a camo hat that can be redeemed when the hats arrive. 💵 Prentice Youth Baseball and Softball Fundraiser Night 🌭🥤 Festival Foods Family Ticket Night: $12 Ticket includes a Brat and Tap Soda 🎟️ Presented by AutoSelect #WausauWoodchucks# #BurrowDown#