Phillies’ all-star Rollins tells kids to play without fear

Hell, the Red Sox started doing this in 1990…and have won two WS because of it!

Rollins was touched by an ESPN documentary about the plight of the Ugandan team and tweeted about it. He later was contacted by a humanitarian group called “Right to Play,” which organized a trip by that same Canadian LL World Series team to Uganda.

Rollins was joined on the trip by, among others, free-agent first baseman Derrek Lee and former major leaguer Gregg Zaun. He described the experience as, “Awesome.”

“If this facility was over there,” Rollins said, referring to Gomes’ academy, “those kids, the way they learn, the fearlessness with which they play, I think they’d be better than (American) kids at this age, because their mentality is, ‘I’m going to make a mistake and it’s OK to be wrong.’ We grow up with, you have to be perfect before you do it.

“With the way (Ugandan youngsters) think and that learning curve, they’ll actually end up better faster. Now, the talent level is equal. It’s just the way that they go about learning, with the fearlessness that will give them an edge, from what I saw. They don’t get a chance to practice. It’s just strap up, play catch and then go play a scrimmage game. That’s what they do.”