Breaking the comfort zone in Argentina 

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Not everyone can say they’ve represented a country for baseball on another continent. 

Bryan Sornas, who grew up on Martha’s Vineyard and is a student at Worcester Academy, recently competed in the South American Tournament of Baseball’s (Sudamericano de Béisbol) under-18 competition as a member of the Brazilian national team. 

Teams from four nations — Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Peru — gathered in Salta, Argentina, to compete at Estadio Popeye Béisbol Club. Venezuela would end up winning the overall competition, and Brazil placed second. 

Bryan spoke with The Times about his baseball journey before heading off to face Argentina, which Brazil beat 7-6 that day in the semifinals. 

Bryan has been playing competitive baseball since he was a child, starting out in the Island’s Little League games. When he started, Bryan said, baseball wasn’t a very popular sport in the Brazilian community. Soccer was the main attraction. 

“As a matter of fact, I was the only one growing up who was Brazilian in all of [on-Island] Little League,” he said. “Even when I got to high school, it was just me at the varsity level.”

The biggest influence that pushed Bryan toward sports was his father, Fabricio Sornas, who played for Brazil’s national volleyball team. Bryan said his father instilled the value of hard work through sports, and was also the one who introduced him to baseball. “I still remember to this day when he came home with a baseball bat and a glove, and I fell in love with the game,” Bryan said. 

Bryan would continue to play baseball on the Island until reaching the varsity level at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS). He worked with his father to spread the joy of the game, particularly among the Island’s Brazilian community, by hosting clinics for younger players. “We kind of pushed baseball to the community,” Bryan said. 

Those efforts have proved fruitful. More Brazilian children are playing baseball now on the Island, compared with when Bryan was coming up. He described it as a “team operation,” since they teamed up with Island organizations like Martha’s Vineyard Little League and the Martha’s Vineyard Boys & Girls Club to reach more of the Brazilian community. “There were so many families coming together in the Brazilian community,” he said. 

Bryan would later receive an offer from Worcester Academy to play baseball during his sophomore year at MVRHS. He said playing at the school was a “great opportunity,” and got him outside his comfort zone. 

“For you to stop getting comfortable where you are, you have to push yourself,” he said, commending the academy’s coaching staff for developing the students as athletes and individuals. 

Joining the national team took a year-and-a-half, which included communicating with the coaches in Brazil. Bryan wanted to join earlier, but took time to improve both physically and in the sport before joining the team. He is one of two players from the U.S. on the Brazilian national team; he called it an “amazing experience.”

“It’s almost like I’m here not only representing myself and my family, but representing everybody back home,” Bryan said.
While playing in another country was an exciting time, Bryan said having his parents be unable to attend the tournament in person was difficult.

“My parents have always been so big for me in my career,” he said. “It’s also one of the things I’ll have to deal with at Worcester, too.” 

The game itself was the same, but Bryan said competing in the Southern continent gave him a different sense of responsibility. “The environment we play in is so much different from back home,” he said. “The crowd is so much louder. There’s drums, there’s whistles, there’s horns, there’s people yelling at you from the stands.” Bryan said his coaching staff was very helpful. 

Eyeing collegiate baseball in his future, Bryan said he’s a “super-competitive,” person and strives to improve on the field while also keeping his grades up. He also emphasized how sports helped him and others stay away from vices like drugs and alcohol, and focused on getting good grades and enrolling in a good college. 

In turn, Bryan aims to continue motivating children. He’s excited to help the Worcester Academy baseball team’s activities, which includes helping local kids learn baseball. Bryan also got some star treatment in Argentina, describing a time about 50 children came up asking for photographs and autographs. 

“Even at Worcester or on the Vineyard, or wherever I go, I always want to help a younger community and push them to do better,” Bryan told The Times. 

As much as people should enjoy playing any sport, Bryan said what he hopes players get out of baseball are lessons like developing a good work ethic. Additionally, Bryan said the “little moments” of being a student athlete, like the early morning weight sessions, or chatting with his father in the car, were things people should be able to appreciate. 

“It’s the little things that I think people should enjoy the most,” he said.