Moore or Less: Why Try the Impossible?

By Merv Moore
Sports Director & Head Baseball Coach

Everyone tells me it can’t be done. Build an elite baseball academy in the jungle? With no corporate sponsor and no promise of a paycheck at the end of the rainbow?

They are probably right. It probably is impossible.

So why am I doing it?

Baseball is my passion. It’s the thing that got me out of bed at 6 a.m. as a kid, biking to my coach’s house for games that wouldn’t start until noon. It’s the thing that took me across oceans, from Switzerland to Brunei, from Nepal to the misty mountains of Bhutan.

And Bhutan? I actually paid my own way there. Airfare, housing, food—all out of my own pocket. When I tell people that, they look at me like I’ve grown a second head. You paid to work?

Yes. And it was the best investment I ever made.

Because those Bhutanese kids, waiting for me in the fog at 6:55 a.m. with nothing but raw talent and burning desire, they restored that fire inside of me. They reminded me why I fell in love with youth baseball development in the first place.

I love turning unconfident little boys into talented, confident teenage ballplayers. That’s not a slogan. That’s the fuel.

In Switzerland, I accomplished things—national team transformations, club championships. But it always felt incomplete. Why? Because it was part-time. Kids would show up twice a week, do their drills, then disappear back into their regular lives. You can build a good player that way. But an elite player? A future MLB superstar?

You can’t shortcut greatness.

That’s why I’m headed back to Bohol next month. Because we’re building something different. Something full-time. Something special.

I want to see kids who have been in my program for five or six years. That’s what excites me. To see a boy arrive at age 10, shy and unsure, and watch him grow into a 16-year-old who can compete with anyone in the world. That’s the dream.

Is it hard? This is the hardest thing I have ever done. No question.

The heat. The humidity. The power outages. The typhoons that knock down coconut trees and force us to start cleanup before we can even think about practice. The doubters who shake their heads and whisper about crazy Americans.

But then I look at the kids. Their faces. Their hunger. Their resilience—forged not on manicured fields with air-conditioned clubhouses, but in a place where life doesn’t hand out participation trophies.

These kids are worth it. Every mosquito bite. Every sleepless night worrying about funding. Every impossible obstacle.

And I’m not doing it alone. My wife Lerma shares this vision just as deeply. While I focus on developing elite baseball and softball players, she’s focused on something equally important: academic excellence. Because talent alone won’t save these kids. They need education. They need options.

But Lerma’s vision goes even further. She’s dedicated to helping parents—especially mothers—find more income opportunities for their families. Because when you lift up a mom, you lift up an entire household. When you give a parent hope, you give a child a future.

So why try the impossible?

Because someone has to. Because these kids deserve to know what they can become if given the chance. Because the Philippines already won the first Asian Baseball Championship in 1954—beating Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The talent is in the DNA. It just needs the ecosystem.

I want to be part of building that ecosystem. I want to see the first Filipino MLB superstar emerge from a program that started in a jungle clearing. I want to prove that the impossible was only impossible until someone tried.

And if I fail? At least I tried. At least I can look those kids in the eye and say: I believed in you enough to risk everything.

That’s why.

Marvin “Merv” Moore is the head coach of the Bohol Coconuts Baseball and Softball Club. He has coached in both Europe and Asia, and was a founder of both the Mister-Baseball and BaseballdeWorld international baseball websites.