Classmates on the Global Diamond

Their motto is: Have glove, will travel.

And they do--a lot.

For Pepperdine University’s Andy Stankiewicz and Mike Fetters, baseball is a traveling classroom--a way to mix business and pleasure.

This week, class begins in Caracas, Venezuela, where the pair will be among the U. S. College All-Stars competing in the Americas Cup, a qualifying tournament for the world championship in Holland in July.

The tournament extends through Oct. 16, meaning the players will miss at least eight days of classes. That doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t be getting an education.

“I think you do learn,” said Stankiewicz, a senior who was an 18th-round draft choice of the Detroit Tigers in June. “You come in contact with different people and different cultures.”

It will be the fourth extensive tour for Stankiewicz since he has been at Pepperdine. After his freshman season, he traveled to Korea and Japan with an Athletes in Action team.

Stankiewicz stayed in North America during the past two summers, playing semipro ball in Alaska for the North Pole Nicks. But even in the United States, he was exposed to a different way of life.

“Coming out of L.A., with the big buildings and everything, Alaska was quite different,” he said. “There might have been 1,000 people where I was staying, the houses were about 100 yards apart and there were moose running around everywhere.”

For Fetters, a 6-4, 195-pound junior pitcher, it will be his second tour in six months with the U.S. team. This summer, he traveled to Korea, Japan, Canada and the East Coast.

“Hopefully, we’ll do better than we did this summer,” Fetters said, referring to the Intercontinental Cup in Canada. “We were a disappointment because we didn’t even make the medal round.”

But he learned.

“The strike zone is different in Korea and Japan,” he said. “Everything is up, from about the arm pits to the belt buckle.

“And the players are older, the Cubans especially. They try to intimidate you.”

The road has provided an education that Fetters didn’t anticipate when he pursued his college baseball career.

“Traveling is something I did eventually want to do,” he said. “And baseball has opened up a lot of doors for me.”

Most of the doors lead straight to the airport.